if that is true, then they need to make that information more available and also tell us how to do it.

Just wait til the day you decide to play it and discover there is a 800Mb patch waitting and you can't play the game for a week til it's downloaded

Besthesda is new to coding, period.

The same issues with Arena, were in Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. Once your "saved game" file got too big, it would crash. You'd suffer random crashes. Pretty much, a lot of what PC gamers are dealing with in Skyrim. And yes, I know there's a lot of other issues with Skyrim, I'm just stating the known problems Bethesda has had in every game of this series.

With that said, how is it possible they still haven't learned how to avoid the problems they've always had in this entire series, going back to TES I: Arena from 1994?

And even with those known problems, I still played those games, and bought Skyrim.

As for Steam, I didn't see the need.

Uldred

I cannot find it

Um no it doesn't it pauses all updates till you exit the game your playing. And even then you can pause all downloads from the Downloads menu. It's not hard all it takes is for people to not be lazy and do the necessary mouse movements.

And in my case I've had zero problems with Steam. I get the occasional CTD but that's always been the case with Bethesda games (Oblivion crashes just as much and it's non-steam). Has nothing to do with steam. My game runs fast and smooth with steam in the background. If yours doesn't then I guess you might wanna look into possible upgrades for your computer. Memory is going cheap on NewEgg right now. Less than $99 for an 8GB kit (if you're on a 64-bit OS).

I hate steam. I say [censored]'EM. Cheers.

Strangely I cannot find Steam in my game.

Go and tell that to Ubisoft

I was skeptical of Steam at first, but I kinda like it actually... I think the main reason for them using steam is $$$$ and being able to easy patch the game up

CPU: AMD Phenom II 6-core 3.200Mhz 1090T Black Box Edition
MOBO: Asus Crosshair V Formula 990FX mobo 1333
GPU: Sapphire ATI HD6950 2048MB DDR5
RAM: Corsair 8GB DDR3 RAM 1333
Primary: Corsair Force 3 90GB SSD 550/500
Secundary: WD 1TB 8.9/64/7200
PS: OCZ 700W

I have 60 FPS generally and down to 30-40 in cities, some dips go as low as 15 FPS

But CTDs occur randomly, especially if you save less often, it somewhat decreased with running no background programmes, meaning 1-2 hours of gameplay with no CTDs

However I object to the policy that I have to use services I do not want at all.

I did too at first, the bare thought of having a program to run a game disgusted me. But after using steam for some time I got used to it. And I actually think steam is pretty hand now, a easy way to support indies and some of those steam sales are awesome!

I've heard rumour of Skyrim torrents for PC being out quite a while. I actually checked it out (not downloading, just checking the Arrrrr!), and I guess there was 20+ torrents I found. They assumedly work without Steam, as long as you play in a window.


Not really true. I played on one of my Oblivion saves 200 hours or so, completing everything. No crashes at all.
Same for Morrowind, with more than 100 hours.

Right if you can shop online, I can't, so I don't want it, don't want to look at it or what else. And if people play the game regularly they can find the updates and mods themselves on community sites and official websites.

I sense other things involved, like google, advertising to your needs (thus selling more), monopoly, and just svcking what they can svck up from you.

Don't get me wrong as I like the series, and mod and play Morrowind for years now, probably finished it more than 20 times for a game that has cost me 6 euros.

But I just don't like the way it is going, lets say tooo industrial.

As a DRM, Steam is pretty piss poor. What it does offer, though, is that it makes resale or trading nearly impossible. Unless you sell the entire Steam account.

[quote name='Praedator' timestamp='1321377659' post='19250897']But I just don't like the way it is going, lets say tooo industrial./quote]

I agree, feels like some developers just make games for profit, and not for enjoyment.

Its not Steams DRM that is effective at fighting piracy though, (It is one of the weakest DRMs on the market (and a quick search shows that skyrim was uploaded on various torrentsites on the 10th of november)), It is the fact that it is piss easy to buy stuff from steam, after a day at work i don't want to go downtown and shop for games, movies, music, etc, i'm way too tired for that, I want to start the download, go and make dinner and have it ready to play after i've eaten, Steam gives me that, If you make it easy enough for people to do the right thing then quite many of them will.

(Obviously not everyone has a creditcard and €50 is alot of money for alot of people, but if we can make it even easier to pay then i think alot of those people will do so once prices drop to a level they can afford) (If the operator charges weren't so insane then i think SMS payments would be awesome as pretty much all kids today get their first phone quite a long time before they get their first credit card)

I'm also fairly certain that publishers get a better deal from valve if they choose to make the game steam exclusive.

I haven't bought anything that ISN'T on Steam (with the exception of GOG.COM titles) in years.

This is also the first game I've paid full price for in all those years too (just couldn't wait). Their sales alone are worth it. I've also never had any technical problems with the Steam client or trouble playing in offline mode when my cable goes out.

As it stands right now, once you've unlocked Skyrim using Steam, you don't need to use Steam to run Skyrim

1. Quit steam, completely.

2. Go to your ..\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim and find TESV.exe

3. Double-click TESV.exe

play Skyrim sans Steam

There was no need for Steam. All it did in my case was to authorise the install, now I have Steam disabled and I start my game from the exe.

I hate it when I decide to play a Steam game I haven't played in a while, only to discover that I HAVE to wait 2 or 3 hours while Steam INSISTS on patching it up, even if it was perfectly playable before. They should fix that IMO and have the patch download separately and inform you when it's there, then you can choose to install it, and your game remains accessible all the time.

also why not give the option to play with or without steam, let the gamer choose what they want?

Because Steam gives them convenient DRM, a way to track player statistics, rigs, and game problems, and an extremely convenient way to patch. Furthermore, it gives them the ability to seamlessly add in for-pay content updates.

They could have done this all on their own, but that would have required more time and, worse of all, it would have required me to download yes another Steam-like program. I don't want a Steam-like program on my rig for EVERY single publisher.

But I do not want to cooperate in any of their statistics at all, especially not if I am not given the choice.

This is marketing, and they are not after your potatoes

What if all info is hacked, and you come home and see your brandnew gaming PC is gone?

I just don't want that.

Steam doesn't force you to take part in it's hardware statistics, it asks about once a month or so if you'd like submit your current configuration.

Also, to-date, no one has lost their Steam account via hacking unless they were careless in handling their account.\

Honestly, I can't believe there are PC gamers out there that DON'T use Steam, it's the only thing that's kept the platform alive for several years now.

I am one of them, well until Skyrim, and I know many more

My question is... if 10 years down the line... if Steam isn't around.... will I still be able to play this game? Or even if it is around will it have the servers to support it?
I guess what I am asking is after installed, can you play it with out steam at all?

This game has replay-abilty potential. I can see myself a few years down with the urge to play it...kind of like Diablo II. I am always amazed with how many players still play that game online.

Steam uses less then 80 MB of ram and that is when you have the community interface activated it is around 30-50 MB without it, which might as well be nothing today. It also uses less then 1% of CPU power. What ever problem people are having, it is not Steam, it is the game or their system. Also, Steam was not built solely for Multilayer, not even sure where you got that idea, I mean come on, it has cloud saving just how many Multiplayer games have a save function? Steam was created for many things, and multi player is only one of them. Even then, Steam is free for publishers to use. Thats right, Bethesda does not pay Valve for the use of Steam. If a publisher does not want to pay any money to Valve for Steam, they just don't get a presence in the Steam Store, but the customer and the publisher still gets all the benefits of Steam/Steamworks. So using any other DRM would actually be a waste of resources, Steam is the only DRM that potentially gives added value to the customer.