EPIC a 2022 Rant for a 2018 Issue

[Kapone33]

. I found this video on Youtube.


Even the Epic site acknowledges that library migration is an issue on their very site. The Issue for me is the fact that even if you just picked up every free Game for a week since EPIC launched your library would be over 100 titles of at least 40GB of data each. For me Steam and Epic are inert in terms of the function they serve (a store front for Game Keys and more and more servers). I have over 700 Games in my Steam library that as I get closer to retirement look forward to enjoying.

Another side of the Gaming ethos (on PC) are the 3rd party store fronts that are the home of old Games and discount sites. Indeed most of my 700 steam Games come from Humble Monthly (Choice now). As Epic has grown discount keys from these sites that are for the Epic platform have grown as well.

Game producers are also in the mix as well. Ubisoft; if you have bought more than 1 Assassin's Creed you probably have most of them now just buy owning those 2. Origin (EA) was the most notorious before Epic and Windows seems to be buying every Game producer they can find. They all have the same thing though. User friendly Game migration is even in Origin (Locate Installed Game). Even though you could have a Game on Steam through EA play it will become a Game you can play if you purchase it on Origin or Steam but you only have to purchase it once and it will work on both platforms. That however is not the focus of my rant.

Epic has been making a lot of noise about different issues in and outside of the Gaming Space. They are even in litigation about some of these. The thing that burns my craw though is how they don't seem to be making any progress on the Game migration front. Not only that it seems they are not even trying. This is not fun for any user. One of the things that holds true from that video is that if you upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 be happy re-downloading Control, For Honor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, TW Troy, Hitman 3, Godfall, Borderland 2, Metro 2033, Pillars Of Eternity......while the files are sitting in their D drive taking up space but unable to run. Why the F$$@ do I need to verify my Game data by REDOWNLOADING it when the files have already been DOWNLOADED.

Everyone else is innovating (you don't need to go on any browser to get your choice Games with the new software package). As I said before EA Play on Steam is butter but Squadrons was an Epic exclusive.

JUST BECAUSE A LOT OF USERS GET THEIR GAMES FREE DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE SHOULD HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS ISSUE SINCE THE PLATFORM LAUNCHED IN 2018 AT 52 PER YEAR THAT MEANS YOU COULD HAVE 200+ TITLES IN YOUR LIBRARY TO f##@ING RE-DOWNLOAD BECAUSE EPIC NEVER FINISHED THE SOFTWARE PACKAGE. IT IS 2022 AND THIS ISSUE SHOULD BE GONE.

 

[eidairaman1]

So much easier with optical media

 

[Kapone33]

So much easier with optical media

I remember thinking what the hell is Steam on my Total WAR Shogun 2 case.

 

[Voluman]

. I found this video on Youtube.


Even the Epic site acknowledges that library migration is an issue on their very site. The Issue for me is the fact that even if you just picked up every free Game for a week since EPIC launched your library would be over 100 titles of at least 40GB of data each. For me Steam and Epic are inert in terms of the function they serve (a store front for Game Keys and more and more servers). I have over 700 Games in my Steam library that as I get closer to retirement look forward to enjoying.

Another side of the Gaming ethos (on PC) are the 3rd party store fronts that are the home of old Games and discount sites. Indeed most of my 700 steam Games come from Humble Monthly (Choice now). As Epic has grown discount keys from these sites that are for the Epic platform have grown as well.

Game producers are also in the mix as well. Ubisoft; if you have bought more than 1 Assassin's Creed you probably have most of them now just buy owning those 2. Origin (EA) was the most notorious before Epic and Windows seems to be buying every Game producer they can find. They all have the same thing though. User friendly Game migration is even in Origin (Locate Installed Game). Even though you could have a Game on Steam through EA play it will become a Game you can play if you purchase it on Origin or Steam but you only have to purchase it once and it will work on both platforms. That however is not the focus of my rant.

Epic has been making a lot of noise about different issues in and outside of the Gaming Space. They are even in litigation about some of these. The thing that burns my craw though is how they don't seem to be making any progress on the Game migration front. Not only that it seems they are not even trying. This is not fun for any user. One of the things that holds true from that video is that if you upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 be happy re-downloading Control, For Honor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, TW Troy, Hitman 3, Godfall, Borderland 2, Metro 2033, Pillars Of Eternity......while the files are sitting in their D drive taking up space but unable to run. Why the F$$@ do I need to verify my Game data by REDOWNLOADING it when the files have already been DOWNLOADED.

Everyone else is innovating (you don't need to go on any browser to get your choice Games with the new software package). As I said before EA Play on Steam is butter but Squadrons was an Epic exclusive.

JUST BECAUSE A LOT OF USERS GET THEIR GAMES FREE DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE SHOULD HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS ISSUE SINCE THE PLATFORM LAUNCHED IN 2018 AT 52 PER YEAR THAT MEANS YOU COULD HAVE 200+ TITLES IN YOUR LIBRARY TO f##@ING RE-DOWNLOAD BECAUSE EPIC NEVER FINISHED THE SOFTWARE PACKAGE. IT IS 2022 AND THIS ISSUE SHOULD BE GONE.

Yes, it's true and confusing, but Origin needed 4-5 years too to implement this...
But yes, why would i redownload my gaming library because an upgrade/storage swap (bigger usually) when it is present on the drive.

 

[X71200]

I remember thinking what the hell is Steam on my Total WAR Shogun 2 case.

Well you're a bit off there... I was using Steam for not just Half-Life way earlier. There were games like Prey and some others titles implemented to it like... way back in 2006-2007. After a point it became obvious that Steam was to take off like it did.

 

[Kapone33]

Well you're a bit off there... I was using Steam for not just Half-Life way earlier. There were games like Prey and some others titles implemented to it like... way back in 2006-2007. After a point it became obvious that Steam was to take off like it did.

Totally understood from your point of view but I did not play Half Life (my loss) for that very reason. I was one of those people that loved Blockbuster for fixing my DVDs (TW Medieval 2). I have been gaming since 5/14 Floppys and was mostly an Arcade Gamer. The only reason I even got Steam was because Total War (probably 10000+ hours) has been my kryptonite since I picked up Rome for $5 at a flea market.

 

[Vayra86]

So much easier with optical media

Oh yeah installing Baldur's Gate 2 was real fun, 4 god damn discs and obviously one would get a scratch somewhere along the way. So you could get 4 coffees in that 20-odd minute process, but not when you wanted to, no.... gotta physically switch discs every once in a while at random intervals.

Or burning your own discs and any hiccup on the PC would make the disc prone for the dustbin especially if your burn speed was too high. Or the fact those discs would fail ten times faster than anything you bought with data already on it. Or that moment when you carefully arranged a bunch of songs on a CD to burn them but the last one exceeds the maximum capacity by a few seconds. What to do... waste 5-7 minutes of disc or edit a file, or burn another one?

Optical media, or actually anything that's not just data irrespective of where it's saved, was a thing of the past and I'm very happy that it is. Matter of fact, if you had a 30 GB game now, I'd doubt you would be that much faster installing the thing compared to a download off any half decent connection. CD ROM carried what, 700MB?

 

[Dorek]

When epic game store came out with free games and such, i just thought free is still too expensive.

 

[R-T-B]

CD ROM carried what, 700MB?

We'd probably be using blu-ray if we'd stuck with it but dvd-roms were a thing for a bit.

I'm still with you. Digital distribution has been a godsend. The "content rights" debate is a separate issue though.

 

[ir_cow]

With digital you don't own it, just leasing. Just remember that when the service shuts down.

 

[DoLlyBirD]

Yup, install Epic on separate drive from C: should you need to reinstall Windows it should be case of pointing the Epic Games launcher install to the games dir: and it doing it's thing, unfortunately no, and it has been an issue for years, reason why I stop using Epic sometimes as I don't see why I have 100's of GB's worth of game files downloaded on a drive and point Epic to it and they completely just ignore them, there are ways to do it though it's not consistent and doesn't work with all games and can also be a PITA, I agree it should have been sorted out long ago, not 5 years later people still having the same issues.

 

[lexluthermiester]

With digital you don't own it, just leasing. Just remember that when the service shuts down.

Somewhat true. Except with DRMFree. This is one of the reasons why GOG is so excellent and why I tend to avoid Steam, Epic and other stores..

We'd probably be using blu-ray if we'd stuck with it but dvd-roms were a thing for a bit.

We still should be. CD's were good for their time, but DVDs started taking over in the late 90's and were default by mid 2003.

Digital distribution has been a godsend.

I fully disagree. I would much rather have physical media than digital downloads.

 

[Kapone33]

Oh yeah installing Baldur's Gate 2 was real fun, 4 god damn discs and obviously one would get a scratch somewhere along the way. So you could get 4 coffees in that 20-odd minute process, but not when you wanted to, no.... gotta physically switch discs every once in a while at random intervals.

Or burning your own discs and any hiccup on the PC would make the disc prone for the dustbin especially if your burn speed was too high. Or the fact those discs would fail ten times faster than anything you bought with data already on it. Or that moment when you carefully arranged a bunch of songs on a CD to burn them but the last one exceeds the maximum capacity by a few seconds. What to do... waste 5-7 minutes of disc or edit a file, or burn another one?

Optical media, or actually anything that's not just data irrespective of where it's saved, was a thing of the past and I'm very happy that it is. Matter of fact, if you had a 30 GB game now, I'd doubt you would be that much faster installing the thing compared to a download off any half decent connection. CD ROM carried what, 700MB?

That is why Blockbuster was your friend. If not you could just get another copy for $5

That is why Blockbuster was your friend. If not you could just get another copy for $5

Actually rent the Game and burn it onto your own DVD it was legal too....If you already owned the Game.

 

[Ruru]

What pisses me off most is when there's old games which aren't available for digital purchase. And no, I'm not getting an external drive and hunting those games used in physical form + spending hours on how to get them working with modern hardware and OS.

 

[eidairaman1]

Oh yeah installing Baldur's Gate 2 was real fun, 4 god damn discs and obviously one would get a scratch somewhere along the way. So you could get 4 coffees in that 20-odd minute process, but not when you wanted to, no.... gotta physically switch discs every once in a while at random intervals.

Or burning your own discs and any hiccup on the PC would make the disc prone for the dustbin especially if your burn speed was too high. Or the fact those discs would fail ten times faster than anything you bought with data already on it. Or that moment when you carefully arranged a bunch of songs on a CD to burn them but the last one exceeds the maximum capacity by a few seconds. What to do... waste 5-7 minutes of disc or edit a file, or burn another one?

Optical media, or actually anything that's not just data irrespective of where it's saved, was a thing of the past and I'm very happy that it is. Matter of fact, if you had a 30 GB game now, I'd doubt you would be that much faster installing the thing compared to a download off any half decent connection. CD ROM carried what, 700MB?

Erm DVDs and BluRays.

Oh yeah installing Baldur's Gate 2 was real fun, 4 god damn discs and obviously one would get a scratch somewhere along the way. So you could get 4 coffees in that 20-odd minute process, but not when you wanted to, no.... gotta physically switch discs every once in a while at random intervals.

Or burning your own discs and any hiccup on the PC would make the disc prone for the dustbin especially if your burn speed was too high. Or the fact those discs would fail ten times faster than anything you bought with data already on it. Or that moment when you carefully arranged a bunch of songs on a CD to burn them but the last one exceeds the maximum capacity by a few seconds. What to do... waste 5-7 minutes of disc or edit a file, or burn another one?

Optical media, or actually anything that's not just data irrespective of where it's saved, was a thing of the past and I'm very happy that it is. Matter of fact, if you had a 30 GB game now, I'd doubt you would be that much faster installing the thing compared to a download off any half decent connection. CD ROM carried what, 700MB?

We'd probably be using blu-ray if we'd stuck with it but dvd-roms were a thing for a bit.

I'm still with you. Digital distribution has been a godsend. The "content rights" debate is a separate issue though.

Not everyone is spoiled with a 100Mbps+ connection, .125 Mb is 1 MB.

100GB over 100Mbps is 2.22 Hours, still slow.

 

[R-T-B]

I fully disagree. I would much rather have physical media than digital downloads.

Then bake your own if it allows offline backups. Best of all worlds as far as I can tell.

And yes, I am a big proponent of offline backups without drm (media rights).

100GB over 100Mbps is 2.22 Hours, still slow.

Have you met the mailman?

Seriously speaking though, that IS a valid point I did not consider. Kudos.

 

[eidairaman1]

Then bake your own if it allows offline backups. Best of all worlds as far as I can tell.

And yes, I am a big proponent of offline backups without drm (media rights).


Have you met the mailman?

Seriously speaking though, that IS a valid point I did not consider. Kudos.

Never Have.

Many homes are still on a Mbps ADSL connection even.

But heres another take. Data rates are if the plant is ideal (no bridge taps, corrosion, dying dslam cards) both dsl and coaxial are suceptable.

56Kbps takes almost 2 days to download 1GB.

When I installed W11 Pro on a Ry 7 5800 Rig using a BD Drive and media is still DVD, it was pretty friggin quick, along with Office 2007. That is not my rig fyi.

That Rigs Specs are:
Zalman Z1 Neo
Seasonic GX 650
Ry7 5800
ThermalRight ARO M14G with a TR RGB HSF Fan.
AsRock Steel Legend B550
Crucial Ballistix Gaming 3600 32GB (16*2) @DOCP/AMP/XMP
Pioneer BDXL Burner
Crucial MX 500 250GB SATA. (Not a fan of making a m.2 hot, let alone mobo, or sacrificing pcie/sata connectivity)

Point is todays rigs can get max performance from optical drives, hell my Signature Rig does as well.

 

[DoLlyBirD]

how is steam shutting down any worse than a games servers shutting down? ok

Never Have.

Many homes are still on a Mbps ADSL connection even.

But heres another take. Data rates are if the plant is ideal (no bridge taps, corrosion, dying dslam cards) both dsl and coaxial are suceptable.

56Kbps takes almost 2 days to download 1GB.

I remember those days, 10 mins to DL a 3MB MP3 or leaving the PC on overnight to download some JPG's or a 300MB film

 

[Ruru]

Personally I haven't used a case in my main rig with a 5.25" bay in over 5 years, though they are still a thing in cheaper cases. I don't even use HDDs inside the case anymore, only external drive on my main system.

What I mean is that times change and sometimes it's just best to let go of the old and preferred. Though I still watch my movies from bluray without a doubt over a stream.

 

[Vayra86]

Erm DVDs and BluRays.

BluRay carries what now? 50GB? So you'll still be swapping discs for the better half of what comes out today. I'm not so sure this bit of progress is as meaningful as it looked/looks. Sure we can compress data to fit into 50GB most of the time. But the practice has not been such, we're not getting the most compact downloads either, and decompression takes time/processing power too, further lengthening the installations.

You're still right about connections though, but that's a matter of planning entirely. I'm on 50Mbit VDSL myself... its not ideal. Swapping those discs required you to be at your PC. I can turn on any bunch of downloads at any time and even schedule them. Then when they're done, one click install and do something else again.

But... this is all #firstworldproblems category imho. Back then we managed, right now we'll manage Still, not everything was better back in the day I think

 

[delshay]

BluRay carries what now? 50GB? So you'll still be swapping discs for the better half of what comes out today. I'm not so sure this bit of progress is as meaningful as it looked/looks. Sure we can compress data to fit into 50GB most of the time. But the practice has not been such, we're not getting the most compact downloads either, and decompression takes time/processing power too, further lengthening the installations.

You're still right about connections though, but that's a matter of planning entirely. I'm on 50Mbit VDSL myself... its not ideal. Swapping those discs required you to be at your PC. I can turn on any bunch of downloads at any time and even schedule them. Then when they're done, one click install and do something else again.

But... this is all #firstworldproblems category imho. Back then we managed, right now we'll manage Still, not everything was better back in the day I think

I can see 100GB+ disc on EBAY or are their fake.. It states triple layer.,.

 

[Dorek]

Personally for game discs i just use 8TB hard drive and just transfer to ssd when i want to play something a bit more often.

 

[Kapone33]

Personally for game discs i just use 8TB hard drive and just transfer to ssd when i want to play something a bit more often.

That will not save you from the Epic Gremlin. It does not matter if you have 7 drives and an Epic folder in each. If you reinstall your OS you will not be able to play those Games until you re-download them without using the Workaround. Epic will even create a sub folder in the sub menu of the very same Game if you let it.

 

[Aquinus]

100GB over 100Mbps is 2.22 Hours, still slow.

Let's be honest here, how often are you downloading 100GB games? Most of the time, I install games and then that is that. It's not like I'm downloading games all the time or anything. In particular, one thing I do like about Steam is how my game saves and game states get uploaded to Steam and downloaded on any machine that I use steam on. This is really nice when I move between my tower and laptop. There is also another consideration about physical media and that's the longevity of the media. Most of my CDs from back in the day have sufficiently rotted at this point, so it's not like physical media is a golden solution.

At least with a solution like Steam, I don't need to worry about the media deteriorating, forget how Steam Play on Linux has been a godsend (at least for me since I don't run any Windows machines.) So from that perspective, Steam is actually pretty fantastic, media rights aside.

 

[skizzo]

That will not save you from the Epic Gremlin. It does not matter if you have 7 drives and an Epic folder in each. If you reinstall your OS you will not be able to play those Games until you re-download them without using the Workaround. Epic will even create a sub folder in the sub menu of the very same Game if you let it.

I'm someone who likes to reinstall their OS depending on OS updates being rolled out. or if needed during a troubleshooting process. So I certainly appreciate the ability to save games and launchers etc onto separate disks to not go through all those setup processes again...of course boot drive backups are a life saver also here

what has really annoyed me about Epic Launcher are some of the same points you and others in this thread make. game migration should be implemented by now, it's a basic quality of life feature I think. downloads are screwed up too. you have to let the download complete in one go, you cannot exit the launcher or it will cancel the download and therefore you gotta start from 0% next time you boot up the launcher. there is a workaround here by doing a force closing of the launcher but this is yet another basic quality of life feature they lack. there is a workaround to migrate already installed games too with renaming and moving folders/files and briefly restarting the game download, which you seem to be aware of, but obviously they are not as user friendly and convenient as literally any other launcher. I've dealt with it because I've only 2 games I would need to relink when I find myself in these situations, but it would be awful for someone with a larger library of games. Epic is bubblegum and band-aids compared to Steams cast iron tank of a reliable and user friendly system. Rockstar, Origin, and Ubisoft Connect are all better than Epic too as far as I am concerned for these same reasons.

I remember those days, 10 mins to DL a 3MB MP3 or leaving the PC on overnight to download some JPG's or a 300MB film

remember those days? more like right now for people like me lol. I constantly leave my PC on overnight or while I'm away at work to download large files like games or software.

Many homes are still on a Mbps ADSL connection even.

But heres another take. Data rates are if the plant is ideal (no bridge taps, corrosion, dying dslam cards) both dsl and coaxial are suceptable.

56Kbps takes almost 2 days to download 1GB.

My home is stuck with a DSL connection. Likely near the end of run since my plan is 6Mbps but it is capped to 3.3Mbps. I thought I was getting scammed until I read the fine print and realized they were within their contractual rights to limit to as low as 3.1Mbps literally just over 50%! of what you think you're paying for

And it's $65/month....for just that 1 slow ass internet plan