I've seen a lot of misinformation about Steam, so I thought I'd make this thread to clear up any concerns people might have.

The most common complaints I've seen are:

You need a constant internet connection to play!

No, you don't. The only times you need an internet connection are:

When you first download/install the game. (People who buy the disk version can install it normally, I think you still need at least a brief connection so the game can be registered.)

When a patch comes out. Patches are installed automatically if there's an internet connection.

Otherwise, you don't need any internet whatsoever to play. The only downside to not having a constant internet connection is that you won't get achievements. (I think, I could be wrong on that.)

Steam is always running and takes away my CPU's power!

If you have a computer that can handle Skyrim, you can handle the Steam client running in the background. It's not a problem at all. I think it was a lot more troublesome when Steam was first release, but I have it running all the time and I don't even notice it. And it's not like I have some sort of supercomputer either.

Steam has all sorts of pop-ups and annoying things!

There are only two kinds of Steam pop-ups, one for when the client itself needs to update, which happens every once in a while, and a 'news' pop-up that comes daily. Neither affect your game. The news is actually very useful, Steam has a ton of sales, just yesterday I bought the Deluxe version of Oblivion for less than 7 dollars.

Any other questions/concerns?

I find it annoying that Steam INSISTS on updating a game before allowing you to play it, even if that game worked fine before. Nothing more annoying than fancying a quick game of something you haven't played for a while, then having Steam tell you you must wait X amount of hours.

Steam updates: convenient? Possibly. Annoying? Definitely

[X] Don't check for updates

I've used steam for quite a while now and I've never, ever had to wait hours for an update.

More like 5 minutes, and I'd much rather have Steam download them for me so I don't have to keep track of new updates myself.

I used to be skeptical about Steam but once I got it over a year ago I never want to go back. It's so easy to use and has great deals. All my current favorite games are games I bought from and play via Steam, including Skyrim. And I LOVE the automatic patch updates. Takes away all the hassle of looking for patches and whatnot.

Ive had a few problems with my game client closing while running steam.

Anyone have any ideas or solitions to this problem?

Sunday I was trying to diagnose some connectivity problems which involved a lot of mucking around with connections and reboots.

If I could have thrown Steam out the window with it's worthless and annoying popups while I'm hip deep in router configurations and IP addresses I'd have done it in an instant.

And I have yet to get any use out of any of those popups. I have not and probably never will buy anything from them and I CERTAINLY don't want more markeing spam. If I want that I'll just go through my junk e-mail folder. The connection is down? Duh. Don't you think I know that already?

You also didn't mention their servers being hacked and customer information being compromised. For a service most people didn't even ask for.

That's not a steam thing, that's a skyrim thing. Happened to me too.

That is just the Skyrim client crashing. Try upgrading your graphics drivers first. Also I was forced to play in windowed mode in a cave last night that was crashing me nonstop (no idea why, but it seems full screen has stability issues periodically).

So turn them off in settings then?

Offline mode does not work for me, so yes it requires a constant internet connection. I have seen others have this issue as well, offline mode is very buggy.

You can launch the game using the TESV.exe directly. This bypasses Steam, so try that.

There's more than that. There are achievement pop-ups, notifications for when friends come on and go offline, pop-ups when a friend joins a new game, pop-ups for when a message is sent to you...

However, all of these can be customized in Steam's settings. Even the daily News pop-up can be turned off.

As for offline mode... It has never been very good. Many people (including myself) have never had offline mode actually work.

That seems odd, why require Steam but not lol? Will give this a shot when I get home.

I love everytime someone brings up the fact that steam was hacked as if it was the only instance of hacking ever. Sony got hacked and private data leaked too. Nothing online is safe to the dedicated hackers its just a matter of what hasnt been hit yet.


And every other complaint people have can be solved by putting steam in offline mode, no popups no self updates.

If you REALLY dislike Steam, you can bypass it altogether in Skyrim. As I posted on another thread, it is SkyrimLauncher.exe that is wrapped around steam and not TESV.exe. So if you bypass the launcher, and run TESV.exe directly, you do not need to have Steam running as a process at all. As I said in the other thread, this is unusual for a game on Steam.

Stannie

EDIT:
OleGregg beat me to this above.

Never seen that option.

It's actually not that unusual. Every Steam game I have, except for those made by Valve themselves (the developers of Steam for those who are unaware), simply installs like a non-steam game into Steam's "common" directory.

Valve's own games, however, keep all their content in Steam GCF (global content file) files, which include the executable and everything.

Right click the game in your steam launcher and go to properties > updates > automatic updates > do not automatically update this game.

Lucky you, having a nice fast BB connection me, I get to wait. & wait. & wait.

I'd much rather have Steam download an update while I was playing, then apply it later.


If you have a cable connection, you might need to remove the cable. I think I read somewhere that Steam likes a cable connection and believes any cable connection to be Steam-capable.

In fact I installed Steam over a WIFI connection, but when I ran it it tried to update, but complained about no internet connection. So Steam can, and cannot, see the internet at the same time. Until I plugged in an ethernet cable, then all was fine. I'm guessing the bug that caused that problem also is connected to the offline mode problem, i.e. ethernet connection.

Okay fair enough, I didn't know that. Thanks.

Another problem I have with Steam is that you have to install all your games into the same partition, the partition you installed Steam to. You cannot install your games where you wish to.

as a steam user, i shall answer these.

1) no you don't, however you never know when steam will require you to do an update and even on offline mode you will at some point be required to reconnect to internet.

2) first of all i would like to clarify the OP's miscomprehension about cpu and gpu, just because you have a graphics card that can handle skyrim does not mean you will not occasionally be slowed down by steam, steam updates frequently espeacially for games like team fortress two. so steam can either be unintrusive about taking up your processing power or it can be the sole bloatware responsible for bringing your computer speed to a halt if you have a bunch of games that update weekly.

3) there is also a third kind of pop up, steam usually gives me a pop up of a featured game that is either on sale or coming close to its release date after i exit a game (but never during the game) and infrequently it has popped up to interupt me while browsing the internet on my browser when steam is left running in the background.

my only dislikes for steam are 1: i hate steam exclusives, i think that steam should be optional and not required when buying a physical copy of a game. 2: i prefer owning physical copies of games i pay for rather than leasing them.

I use Ethernet directly from my DSL modem/router, and still had the issue.

Tried the TeSv.exe method and it still required steam for me, also since it bypasses the launcher you would not be able to use plugins for mods/edit graphics settings. Back to my cracked copy I suppose, I would much rather use the legit version of the game *sigh*.

That's another thing with Steam, as was mentioned right above my post. With Steam's ToS you are only basically renting the game, so if Steam were to ever go under or even bought out you would lose your game(unless the takeover company decided to let you keep it).

I'd just like to say that, while I understand the hesitation to use Steam, as I was against using it at first, I've really grown to love Steam.

The Steam sales are fantastic, and I can buy games I'd never get to see in a physical store. Many of the indie projects that come out only for digital distribution are, while obviously lacking in the polish of a AAA game, actually often more innovative, and fun for at least a dozen hours of giving it a whirl to try something new, and buying a game for even just a dozen hours of enjoyment is still fine, since I generally get those games for the same price as a AAA game's DLC, which rarely gives me that much enjoyment time.

I even managed to buy an emulation of the original UFO Defense (X-Com) for less than a dollar during the Christmas sale last year.