First thing, offline mode does work fine. The only patch that seems to be forced was the one that messed with the .exe. It was an oversight that Bethesda missed and had Valve patch. And where are you getting that Valve is pushing updates without Beth's permission? We would more than likely see legal action if such a thing occurred.

And the Steam workshop isn't "Crapping all over the mod scene". I'm not sure if you knew but it is optional.

And Steam haters are just as bad as Steam lovers...

Computer gaming is dead, its steam or nothing. We dont even have a choice anymore.
Steam haters just as bad as steam lovers I dont kow about that, steam haters just want to be able to play a game with out it, thats it.

Is that OK with steam lovers???

Patch 1.2 pushed out even if autoupdates were disabled too.

Not sure if this was posted already or not but I thought it was a pretty cool and interesting read.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/interview-cd-projekts-ceo-on-witcher-2-piracy-why-drms-still-not-worth-it/

Thank you for proving my point.

As for my point too.

Interesting find. I would like to see a comparison of their estimated sell/pirated ratio to that of Skyrim in a couple of months.

I also like this part:

CD Projekt has an excellent take on this whole issue, I just wish more companies would follow their lead.

The various times my internet connection's died, I've never been able to get it to go into offline mode; if I want to play anything until it comes back, it has to be something other than what's in my Steam library. Annoying, to say the least.

That's because you need to set the offline mode while you are online (you are essentially asking the Steam server for permission to go offline) Or rather, that's how it's supposed to work.

Since pretty much all of my offline activity is unplanned due to the nature of random network outages, it's not a terribly useful feature. I think this is one element of DRM that I really object to: it's already checked my credentials when I installed it, and I really do object to having to ask permission every time I want to use something that I'm already a verifiably legitimate owner of (okay, licensor, as Steam prefers to think of it, whether or not they're entitled to do so.)

Help me please! This seems like the place to get help.

I just received Red Orchestra 2 from a friend. He did not like the game so he uninstalled it and passed it on to me. When I got it I went on to installing. After entering my a code a message appears, "This game has already been activated on another account."

He said he uninstalled the game so wouldn’t that allow me to play now? I'm quite angry at this. Very angry and could someone help me evade this problem. I would like to play my game.

As far as Valve/Steam goes the game still belongs to your friend as it was registered to that account & as such it is permanently bound to it

You'll either need to have him gift it from his account to yours, or have him contact Valve support and let them know what's going on. There's no other legal method to go about it.

What a pain!

He bought the game...You can't just freely trade games that you bought from Steam.

I thought one could only "gift" an "unused" game?

I can't help feeling we're really rather overdue for one of the consumer groups to take a close look at this...

I feel the same way especially since I got the feeling Arrow Slayer got the disc version of Red Orchestra 2

Agreed. CDK Projekt understands that the only real way of combating piracy is to make the alternative more appealing/convenient, and adding DRM makes it more frustrating. By adding it, developers are actually encouraging piracy. Look at ubisoft, their DRM was draconian and some people pirated it solely out of spite.

I'll just write what I wrote when people complained about New Vegas was for Steam:

Pros of having Steam
1. Chat with people without alt-tabbing
2. Buying online although for the older fashioned people or ultra paranoid people like me, this is more of a con if anything else. I always feel like there's a keylogger or something in my computer whenever I type in something
3. No disk...although that's also sort of a con. After all, having a hard copy is good but I do agree with you that trying to find the key to activate the game is a pain

Screenshots may be a pro but it's not good enough to mention. Firstly, Steam sometimes shuts down or gets overflowed but WAY more importantly, it's not that hard to press "Prt Scr" on your keyboard

Cons of having Steam
1. No point for single player games. Yeah, you can talk to your friends but really? That's the best excuse? If anything, I find that notification thing annoying.
2. Having to have internet when first buying from retail. Kind of a drag if anything but if my modem goes out and I have to repair it, I'd like to play some Elder Scrolls while waiting.
3. No disk. Hard copy is better than cloud. Cloud can be hacked, hard copy has to be robbed from your house. Not to mention that sometimes, error can happen. Or Steam can get hacked like that 2.6 some million people's accounts getting hacked that one time.
4. The company needlessly gets "involved" with Steam and stuff like Steam Workshop with modding comes in.
5. Again, NO TANGIBLE POINT WHILE IMMERSED IN GAME! Multiplayer games? They need to be on Steam. Single player games? No point. Chatting with people? Breaks immersion if anything. Besides, whatever happened to the cellphone or alt-tabbing? I have NEVER experienced an alt-tab crash before for Fallout New Vegas or Skyrim yet.
6. Just a quick complaint that only pertains to me and a few others: It's more annoying when modding. Not that much but just for me, it feels like it's more work. Just a thought and it's just an opinion.


Oh and just a side note: Steam Workshop better fail and go away, or at least we better not be forced to use it. I can imagine installing something as big as Heart of the Dead and half way through, it'll just say "Error [insert number]" and then just fail. Even if it installs, it'll probably install the more complex mods wrong.

Speaking of the cloud. Don't forget that the gov't can also easily get your data without a warrant or even informing you. All they would need is to go to the server host and demand the info. Of course, for gamers, this doesn't mean anything, but I bet people who use Chromebooks might think differently.
The cloud practically throws privacy out the door.

I wonder if this is plan between Bethesda and Valve to get people to sell popular mods. I really am curious to know how many people would be willing to exclusively publish their mods through Workshop in order to make a cut (assuming it was considered).

I'd like to see this "feature" handle multiple overhauls or total-conversions. Highly doubt it can.

New update available.

Fixed keeping "Do not automatically update this game" setting

It was about time.

@dAb

Does it work? I've been in offline mode for quite some weeks now. I'd like to get back online to install a couple of other games, but I don't want to update Skyrim to 1.2. I can't change the auto-update settings in offline mode, and I'm afraid it will update once I go online. Is there a way to get around this?

No idea whether it works or not, I had not the chance to test it myself since I got already everything up to date. However, since that fix is mostly due to the complains coming from the Skyrim community we might presume it works as intended.

And no, too bad there's no way known to get around this, once you get offline you are not allowed to change any auto-update settings, you're forced to get back online to do so.