I am going to say that I would strongly bet the GOTY edition still requires Steam. Oblivion GOTY didn't require Steam because the regular Oblivion edition didn't require Steam. And @darkrage1138, can your friend not go to like a coffee shop and connect to their Internet for the one time activation? I have no idea where you live, so that would be my suggestion. Just go somewhere that has free wifi, install the game and activate it, then don't worry about it. Yes that is a major hassle and he should not have to do that, but it would get his game to work. Or it should anyway.

I'm not sure if Fallout 3 GOTY was a GFWL game. If it was, Skyrim GOTY will probably be a Steam game as well.

I've seen a few posts on how steam is somehow a resource hog compared to a games that will routinely take 3x or more RAM, but that's up to individual computers I guess. This though, is just fishing for reasons to hate Steam. Any computer connected to the internet is not safe from being hacked. The only 100% method of making a computer hack proof is unplugging the network cable. If you remember, Sony got hacked too. Being high profile makes them targets, so any well known company is at risk. If you dislike Steam because they were hacked, you should also avoid Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Bank websites, and generally any large company that saves information about you to servers on the internet.

I'm also curious what problems people are having with Steam at this point. I know it used to be bad at the beginning, but it's a lot better now. I have no errors with it, and it doesn't slow down my system (had it running all the time on my six your old desktop even).

One last edit: Like some other people have stated, you can run the game without steam. I routinely bypassed the disc check for Fallout 3 unknowingly by running it directly (I had a retail copy). It's possible that the launcher is the only encrypted file, which is probably why it's been cracked so easily.

The game uses Steamworks. That includes the Steam DRM and community/achievement functions. Though seeing as you can bypass almost all of it by running TESV.exe (skipping the launcher), the possibility of a fully non-Steam version is at least physically possible. Though the odds of it actually happening are unlikely. And even if it did happen, you'd probably need the disk in the disk drive to play, unless they used some other form of DRM. I'm sure some people don't mind that, but I'll be sticking with Steam. At least Steam allowed me to play my games when my disk drive broke.

Edit:

Fallout 3 GOTY was indeed a GFWL game. Though you could bypass the GFWL stuff by running the game's .exe directly (skipping the launcher). Doing so also allowed me to play without having the disk in. I'm not sure if that was intentional, or just a fluke though.

Edit again: Actually, I don't remember if skipping the launcher is what bypassed GFWL, but I had FOSE installed, which I know disables it.

I could have swore that I started Skyrim with out steam one day.
Not that steam is evil-bad or anything just noticed after a few hours of play that my in game seam browser and friends list thing where not working.

I love steam, where else can you get deluxe GOTY (all extra content) Oblivion for under $8?
Its my third or fourth copy of the game.
I had one on 360, and two on pc. The GOTY and the normal edition.

Is Steam required for Skyrim if I purchase a physical copy from a store like Best Buy?

I wish they would remove Steam, but no it will most likely still require Steam to run on the GOTY. I personally bought the game earlier this week and just use the cracked version as I do not want to use Steam. The ToS, resource hogging, and constant internet connection/no choice of not updating make me dislike Steam. And I cannot get Steam to work in offline mode as people keep saying here, I bought Left for Dead 2 on Steam and switched to a faster internet leaving me without internet for a week. I tried playing in offline mode, but kept just popping up a window saying I have to connect in order to play. I see others on the steam forums with the same issue, so it works maybe half the time.


Yes

He can go to McDonalds or some other shop that offers Wifi and take the 5 minutes (probably less) it takes to decrypt the game. Then go home and play the game without internet whenever he wants. Either using the direct .exe in the Skyrim folder, or just using Steam in offline mode.

All the arguments people use against steam are completely invalid. It's the year 2011, almost 2012. It cost maybe $500 to build yourself a decent gaming machine (that doesn't include OC, screen and mouse & keyboard). $900 can get you a beast of a machine. $1,200 and you will be good for at last 5 years. And free internet is all around us, now. Even if you live in the country, it's maybe an hour, two hour long drive (that you'd probably need to make for some other reason, like shopping) to a city that has several shops that offer free wifi internet. You can buy a wireless card at walmart for like $20-50.

I am by no means rich, but even I was able to save up the money to buy a decent gaming computer in a year. And I've already started saving up the money I'll need for my next machine in 4-5 years from now (I've had this one for a bit over a year now). If you can't afford to have a machine that doesn't even notice the 'resources' that steam takes, then you have no reason to be playing modern games, I'm sorry.

I mean holy crap, I paid $1,200 (that is including OS, Keyboard & Mouse, and screens) for my computer, and I can run Darkfall, Mortal Online, AND Skyrim all on ultra settings. My 'computer' actually only cost me $900. I would be able to do the same things with a $700 computer.

Right now, for anyone that has the self control and time to play games, how much resources a game takes should not be a worry for anyone.



I have yet to see a valid argument as to why someone should refuse to buy Skyrim just because of its need of Steam to activate. I guess Bethesda also fails to see a reason why anyone should feel hindered by the need for steam to activate the game, seeing how they require it. I can guarantee that they will most likely continue to require it, or some other form of online activation/decryption.

Yes just to confirm, it is SkyrimLauncher.exe that is wrapped around steam and not TESV.exe. So if you bypass the launcher, you do not need to have Steam running as a process at all. This is unusual for a game on Steam. I don't think it's ever happened before. I could be wrong though - and it wouldn't suprise me if they patch it out, either.

Of course you will lose the ability to configure the game's options in the launcher (including activating any future master or plugin files).

Stannie

No need for steam. You can get any game with an age like that for <10$ now, fully patched including Addons and on a physical media.


They are not, instead it is proven, that all arguments FOR Steam are invalid. Just read some of the posts before, including the ones regarding piracy.

So how long before these people stop crying about Steam? One-two weeks?

If you want to game on the PC svck it up and get over it, Steam is here to stay and will only be more common in the future.

doubtful, for what ever their reasons i would expect that the publishing arm of bethesda is going to work with steam for a number of future titles to come.

How about giving me an argument for why I need steam in single player game?

The resources it uses are minimal, admittedly, but still greater than 0. I don't notice them on my system, other people might. What I do notice are error messages. Having to figure out what is wrong with the copy protection program before I can even install my game.

Can I get by with steam? Sure. Buy why would I want to if I can avoid it?
If the game forced you to install AOL automatically (they still exist somewhere don't they?) would you be ok with that? I mean your $900 machine probably wouldn't notice that. And it only throws up annoying advertising once in a while, right?

The question is not 'Does steam hurt me?' as much as it is 'does steam help me?'. The answer is clearly 'no' for a lot of people.
On the other hand, finding out there is a file I can run that doesnt load up steam makes me happy.

Steam will simply not be removed. Like people said it's basically the copy protection of the game. Also it's not invasive at all.

I thought I had it running with out steam once.


You show me where you can get GOTY Oblivion with ALL the DLC that cheep.
The GOTY copy still only has SI and Knights of the Nine, not MR or FS and the others.

Pardon me, but the how the hell else would they get patches? Even if the game didn't use Steam they'd still have to go online.

I've been using Steam for 6 years. The first time I tried it, when it first launched with Half-Life 2, it was indeed awful and buggy and inconvenient. Now I rarely game on the PC without it. It offers so many extra benefits, unlike other forms of DRM. The constant updates that happen in the background to keep games up to date, the storage of my game saves between computers, etc. etc. All you need to do is move once or get a new computer to see the full benefits of Steam, because instead of keeping up with discs and serial keys and re-installing everything and moving over save files, all you have to do is log-in to Steam on your new computer and your games are all there. And they remember the settings you had for them. You hit 'Load' and all your old saves are available.

This doesn't even mention the sales that Steam has. I'm constantly getting AAA game titles for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. I bought Bioshock 2 on PC for only $5 a couple of weeks ago. I've gotten all the Company of Heroes games for less than $10 total. Hell, right NOW on Steam they have Oblivion's GOTY edition for $5.

And all the problems and annoyances people have with the service can be fixed easily. Steam has an off-line mode. I used to use it all the time when I had a dial-up connection. So you just need to be online for 5 minutes for Skyrim and then NEVER AGAIN. You can even skip starting Steam after you register the game on it by just making a shortcut to TESV.exe and clicking it. Pop-ups and messages from Steam? You can go into its 'Settings' menu and disable those and it won't bug you anymore. And bogging things down? Eating resources? It's using 78 MB of RAM on my system at the moment. The internet browser you are using right now is probably eating up 3 or 4 times that much memory. And 78 MB of RAM is less than a dollar of RAM at the current price of memory sticks.

I get it. It's new to you, it's different, "they changed it now it svcks", etc. etc. but Bethesda has been using Steam now for at least it's last two games with no problems. This shouldn't have come as a surprise. It's listed on the box and every list of system requirements, and Bethesda has been using this system for the last 3 years.

And no, GOTY edition will not remove the requirement for Steam. And that's good for you too, because you know where you'll most likely be able to buy that edition for the change in your pockets? Steam.

No. I got a specific notification that STEAM had been hacked. (It had been installed several months ago for another game.) I was wracking my brain trying to remember if I'd given them a credit card number. I know for a fact they had my e-mail address which I guess means the hackers have it.

As for Sony being hacked. Yes it was. But at least people had the CHOICE of going there. Sony had online games (which HAD to be played online as they're multiplayer games) and epeople can choose to go there and take the risk or not. Sony gives value for the risk taken.

When you went to something like Sony Online Entertainment for one of their online games you do it for the game. You're getting something out of it and have decided ahead of time it's worth the risk. That's not why you go to Steam. Steam has NO value in and of itself. I for sure didn't deliberatly set up an account just because I thought Steam was worthing having in and of itself. I had to set up an account to play a game I'd bought at the freaking Best Buy and didn't find out I'd need Steam for it until I got home.

For some reason i can start skyrim without steam by starting via the .exe file thus you don't even have to have steam on ever again. Not that it bothers me as i have no problem with steam.

I can't wait to see this forum go agro when this game doesn't win GOTY.


Because it's good. It's really good. It's solid, and fun and I'll put a lot of hours into it.




But GOTYs are groundbreaking.

Well, I thought the GOTY Edition has all DLC included, but I was wrong. I can hardly remember any additional great DLC anyways... what was it: horse armor or so? But I mean - come on after all this time it's likely no one cares anymore. Definitely not a must-have argument for Steam.


If this is true, I will instantly go to the shop and buy a copy. Afaik with the Skyrimlauncher you can change some options before starting the game, though not necessary. But if it is as you say and I can start TESV.exe and play the game without any internet connection and no (prior) activation, I'd be fine too. Need more proof though. Anyone else can confirm that?

I don't think you can say that for sure. Oblivion did actually need an activation as well and the Budget version later on didn't. So why not in Skyrim if the Steamlauncher is only wrapped around it.

You can turn off auto updates for steam by un-checking a box.

I have nothing against steam, in fact, I mostly only purchase games through Steam now. As an SDE I do understand the need for anti-piracy and I am firmly against any method(s) circumventing efforts to prevent intellectual property theft. Software piracy doesn't just hurt a company but also hurts employees and economy.

My concern is that I just remember digitally distributed copies of previous Elder Scrolls games (Oblivion primarily) behaved differently with some user made mods. I remember some mods even specifically called out that they were not compatible with copies distributed through D2D.

All arguments in this thread have pretty much been opinion. Nothing has been proven in this thread yet.
Here's a slightly dated but still relevant article on piracy and Steam.
http://gamepolitics.com/2010/09/16/valve-piracy-rates-and-how-steam-keeps-them-low
Other publishers wish they could say they don't worry about piracy. As has been said before, only Skyrim's Launcher is protected by Steam, so it's going to be one of the easier games to pirate.
The only other thing close to "proof" is that some people have had Steam spew errors at them, which is possible with all software.

I understand DRM, but not to the extent most game are now. The simple cd requirement made it so you cannot just hand your copy to other people which is understandable, however such things that inflict users are not understandable. It's a waste of money and time to such extensive DRM as they end up cracked anyways, Skyrim was actually out and cracked for pirates the day before it launched(granted the DRM is not near as bad as what Ubisoft does, I bought Heroes 6 and it's freaking ridiculous there is no offline mode in that game). So Bethesda wasted all the time required to make the DRM/wasted money for Valves DRM more likely, only to have it circumvented and inflict/dissuade some sales of legit customers.

Just because you don't care, doesn't mean others don't care. The world does not revolve around your thoughts and opinions.

Well, I know it comes with SI and Knights.
Then there is Fighters stronghold, Mehrunes' Razor and Horse armor. As well as the Orrery, spell tomes the thieves den and vile lair.
lastly, the WIzzards tower.That right there is 8 extra DLC's all well worth $1 each, to top it off I got both large expansions and the full game.



Once you have it set up you should be able to launch it from the game file and bypass steam, I am really sure I did it once and a few others have confirmed it,
But you MUST activate it on steam first and use that launcher to get the setup menu. But you could use the INi files maybe to adjust settings.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that Steam has no value. One of my friends actually took a look at my games list and figured I owned over $1000 worth of games on steam, but I guarantee I didn't pay that much. I got both Ghostbusters and Batman: Arkhum Asylum for less than $20 during one of the holiday sales, and many other games on sale. Steam cloud stores game saves and settings. The first time I played Just Cause 2 wasn't actually on my home computer, but when I got home, my game progress was there. I use Steam as an IM client more than AIM/Pidgin. Steam has far more value beyond "just another DRM shackle", and it reflects Valve's stance on entertainment as a service.