Dear Publisher,

I've seen this gorgeous game and wouldn't wait for one second to move my money to your account. However, I have also seen that you have to keep the Steam application running to install/run/patch the game. Thus, I'm sorry to say:

No.

Please inform me in this thread of any progress to bring this game to customers without them having the Steam application running (just a cd check via their DRM library in the installer of the game would be ok).

This is the Fallout 3 Hardware/Software issues. Do you mean Fallout New Vegas. Fallout 3 doesnt need any application running to play the game. (And Steam really is one of the least intrusive of "modern" DRM forms. Once installed and verified to your account, you can just play in offline mode.)

There is no way to get the game without Steam. And I cannot see them changing this as it would require the implementation of a new DRM system, new achievement system, etc. A LOT of work would be required.

You only need to be online to authenticate the game, after that you can disable automatic updates and switch Steam to offline mode.

edit: My turn to be ninja'd

And yes, only New Vegas requires Steam so this is the wrong forum.

You are in the wrong game, the wrong forum, and the wrong web site. This is for Gamer to Gamer PC Tech discussions about Fallout 3. The movers and shakers for gamesas aren't here. You will get no answer from them. The fact that many of us agree that Steam was a terrible idea happens to be inconsequential for Fallout New Vegas.

Yes, I meant New Vegas. Thanks for the mod who moved it.

If gamesas (the publisher) doesen't read this forum and doesen't care or both: Their loss.

And to "a lot of work is needed":
Both the game and the patches can be made available online with bank wire transfer. Or if the don't want to make this themselves, they could choose a download service without requiring a daemon to run on your machine whilst/after purchase. This is purely a political decision.

Where are they then?

I'd like to tell them somethings about the latest patch, and how I had to remove it, run on the previous one and disable the game from updating........ etc

Just because the patch broke my VATS.

http://www.gamesas.com/eng/contact.html

The problem is that Steam is already integrated into the game, it's part of the code. It would be very difficult to remove it at this point without basically doing a complete rewrite of the game. And that's just not going to happen. Hopefully all the complaints about Steam will make them think twice about using a system like that in their next game. What's ironic is that even with this supposedly superior DRM system in place, a pirate version was available within three days of release. I'm convinced that this has nothing to do with piracy at all, they just want to stop people from trading in their games after they've finished playing them, so that other people can't buy a used copy that Bethesda doesn't get any royalties from. Which really svcks if you think about it. If you buy the game, you won't even be able to give it to a friend when you're done with it, since the activation code is yours alone. Pretty crappy way to treat the honest consumer. I'm almost tempted to go back to playing nothing but pirated games.

Bethesda does read this site. From Jason Bergman, senior producer.

"We want everyone to know that we are monitoring the forums and cataloging every single issue we see reported. We’re reading forum posts, we’re checking Twitter, and we’re reading Facebook comments. We aren’t able to reply to most threads, but we’re listening. If we see an issue, we have people here trying to reproduce it so we can fix it."

Full post here http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1125221&st=0

A few answers: http://support.gamesas.com/eng/faqs.asp?sid=092202101121068038239129&pid=400000953&pnm=Fallout%3A+New+Vegas&seid=400002570&pos=Windows+XP

Actually, according to the Steaworks business solutions spiel, the SDK doesn't have to be added in until very late in the process. You could already have a working beta and still be able to integrate Steamworks. I still believe that Bethesda and Obsidian are under some sort of contractual obligation with Steam and will never be able to release a Steam-Free version of New Vegas. It would be nice to hear from an actual Bethesda employee about if/when this can be resolved. At the very least they could acknowledge that they have upset a large group of what had been loyal fans.

I don't think that Beth is under a contractual obligation to have Steamworked all the PC versions, Torchlight has a fully Steamworked version & a Steam-free disc version. So everyone is covered there & I can personally confirm that the disc version isn't Steamed.

As I understand it each game gets its own contract, Torchlight my have just had better representation. I believe the decision to make Steam mandatory for the retail version may mean that there will not be a Steam-Free retail version. But until I get confirmation from a Bethesda official, I'm still hopeful.