with all the midwit shit on the steam forums almost giving me an aneurism, here's what it's all about:
for background, there are 2 components involved people often confuse: EGS (epic game store) and EOS (epic online services). it's still the same account (kinda, see below), but they work independent of each other and have separate installations.
EOS is more ubiquitous than people know, see
https://steamdb.info/tech/SDK/EpicOnlineServices/ - this is the list dumbfucks like to throw around as some kind of "own" why you should just suck timmy's cock since you're already doing it anyway.
what said dumbfucks don't understand is that there are 2 versions for authentication: accounts (called auth interface) and what epic calls "connect interface":
https://dev.epicgames.com/docs/game-services/eos-connect-interface
basically you'll always need some form of authentication obviously, which you either get via logging into an epic account or create an id for that game so the service knows who you are, where you come from etc.; the latter is usually happening in the background, most people aren't even aware this is a thing (and probably won't care).
now, here's where sandlot fucked up:
1. right after the installation of the game the installer for epic online services (not the lauchner/store) pops up because they're using the external library. this is was gets people freaked out, especially when it fucks up (literally happened to me). and there is no way around it, you need it even for singleplayer otherwise the game doesn't start and gets stuck on a white screen.
most or even a lot of games bake that into their files directly, no need for extra installers etc., it might get mentioned in the TOS (which no one reads) or somewhere in the small print on the store (although there's a curator for anyone curious:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34410309-Epic-Games-Sucks/)
2. as mentioned above they went went with a prompt instead of "hiding" it. can't blame them too much here since they're following epic's recommendation (which they wouldn't have to with they way they're using it anyway).
from the link above:
Creating a user will generate a new Product User ID for the user given the external credentials used during login. It is almost always necessary to prompt the user and see if there is an alternate way to login before creating a new user. This will reduce confusion and user game progression merging issues in cross-platform situations.
if you don't log in with your epic account, you can just create a "dummy" without email and simply accountname/date of birth (probably for some child protection stuff regarding data) and that's enough to get into online.
however, some might notice that's all still kinda opaque, what happens if it fucks up? well, you're fucked even harder. good luck getting sorted out who what where is responsible for dealing with EOS not letting you online with a "credentials" error after jumping through all these hoops.
3. most people have no fucking clue how any of this works (and granted they shouldn't need to), properly communicating what the fuck is actually happening once a window mentioning "epic account" pops up would reduce some of the backlash. simply getting dumped back into the menu if you decline doesn't help either.
4. to make matters worse, as already mentioned they didn't put that requirement itself anywhere on the steam page, which might be a steam requirement (not sure, but given the wave of refunds hiding this usually generates it probably is for that reason alone, no one likes to deal with someone else' mess). it could even be false advertising considering how anxious people are about this shit now, even more so after helldivers 2. anyway dumb as fuck.
EDIT: if you "hide" it like mentioned in #2, you can get around having to mention it on the store page. no external account necessary so no "3rd party" stuff that might keep people from buying the game. and even if you should have to, if no one notices (or there's isn't enough of an outcry) like most things people don't care to follow any possible rules.
5. and here is where it gets really retarded: EOS was initially used for crossplattform
on playstation. see
@BibiLivesMatter PR piece:
Why Epic Online Services?
The EDF series has been developed using a proprietary framework, with network communication also utilizing custom implementations. Initially, EDF6 was targeted to release on PS4; however, with the release of the successor console, the PS5, during the development, there arose a demand for "compatibility with both PS4 and PS5" and "cross-matching." It was determined that the current system could not accommodate processing commonality and matchmaking between different hardware, necessitating the search for a new solution.
Epic Online Services (EOS) was the one selected for this purpose.
dunno if that means sony has no online crossplay-solution themselves or sandlot went with it for the later PC release in mind. either way that is fine on it's own, but here's the kicker: there is no crossplay between PC and playstation (that I'm aware off, given how cheap they seem to be I doubt they paid sony off to have it, usually sony wants a "reimbursement" of microtransactions they miss out on, that info leaked during the epic trial).
the only "crossplay" if you want to call it that would be between steam and the epic store. so essentially they poorly implemented an online service almost completely used by steam users, for which the old version used in the old games would've worked just fine. afaik there's not even fucking matchmaking, just lobbies.
of course it would be more expensive to have 2 multiplayer implementations, but considering they had 2 fucking years to do it, still ask $60+dlc tip for a 2 year old borderline re-hashed port, and after pretty much the same shit nuked helldiver's player numbers...
apparently (that's second hand info, don't have the game anymore to verify it myself) it gets worse insofar that they don't fully use EOS, it's just for setting up the lobby. after you connect you can disable/uninstall EOS. I mention it because it means they could've used their old shit even easier/faster. never mind "different hardware" didn't keep 4.1 and 5 from working.
hope it was worth it possibly nuking your whole future franchise on PC for that.
EDIT: since I forgot to mention it: all this... and pirates can still play online, the files and fix are already floating around. not sure if you're limited to other pirate lobbies, and you still have to install EOS, but still...
I just didn't want to play it after they pandered to faggy VTubers. I thought, "Really? You had all kinds of other things you could do for pre-orders and this is all that you came up with?"
it's a japanese game, they had collabs for ages, it pretty common over there in general. that's how you get 2b in final fantasy 14 for example.
and it's not pandering, pretty sure more normalfags know EDF from vtubers than the other way around. "influencers" always boost numbers, just look at the vermintide asmongoloid causes. you can't get bigger than hololive, and since they play the game anyway makes sense to use it for marketing.
fwiw they fucked even that up, afaik gura is limited to non-jp, that's gonna piss off quite a few nips (unless they added holoEN to the jp store).
