"Stop Bitching, PC Gamers" -Ubisoft

^^Again, that has never happened to me. I wonder why...

The thing about Steam is that if, say, your connection goes down, Steam won't let you access most of your games. You can get around this by setting Steam in offline mode, but unless you have a terrible ISP who has more downtime than up good luck predicting when that'll happen.

I guess my modem, despite it sucking with connecting to games, seems to be good enough to that never happen to me Heck, when steam connection gets cut of during updates or for some other reason, I have still been able to play games.(I guess since I had already logged in? xD)

Anyway, people play too much video games anywy, I know since I do XD

^^How is that hard? You just press the button to start in offline mode, and if your internet is down for an entire month, you can't play your games. That's not exactly common.

edited 28th Nov '11 12:39:55 AM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

His point is mostly you'd want to be online to play with your friends.

Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!

I don't recall saying it was hard. It's inconvenient, and it's an extra hoop to jump through to play something you ostensibly own.

Pressing a button isn't exactly a huge inconvenience.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

So you're saying not being able to access a significant portion of your Steam library due to unforseen connection issues isn't a problem?

People complain too easily these days That or they all have horrible computers .-. My old computer was VERY horrible, everything become muuuuuuuuuuuch easier and sweeter when I got new one x3(of course, my new one is becoming old by now, but its still faster and more usable than the old one)

I'm not even complaining though, and it's not like I hate Steam with every fiber in my body. But it boggles my mind when people bitched about how Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 required you to be connected to the internet at startup, but Steam's been doing the same thing for years and anyone who complains about this setup is simply brushed aside.

edited 28th Nov '11 12:56:56 AM by MrDolomite

No, I'm saying that not being able to access a significant portion of your library until you press the "go offline" button isn't a problem.

Seriously, if your internet connection dies, you press a button and boom, there's your library. I'm not seeing the issue here.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

I'd like to direct you to this thread on the Steam forums, which has quite a few people complaining about the issues I've brought up.

There are some others in the thread, though, that claim that they can start up offline mode and access all their games just fine even if they weren't connected before. I wouldn't be able to offer an explanation for that, but I want you to understand that this isn't an imaginary issue, and that it does affect many people, even if they are a minscule group in relation to the entire Steam userbase.

Huh. I actually didn't realize any non-negligible number of people had that problem. Sorry about that.

I guess I'm just lucky with regard to that issue; I've never had a game fail to launch when I was offline, and I'm offline enough.

edited 28th Nov '11 1:29:15 AM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

I've had quite a lot of issues with Steam, but for all the problems it has it also gives really good deals on games during the steam sales so I'd say it's worth it.

It's fine. On a personal note, my connection is stable enough so that I never even have to go into offline mode to begin with, but I do know through testing that I can't access my games if I'm not connected from startup. It bothers the hell out of me when others write it off because "oh that never happens to me".

Offline Mode in general is just buggy as all hell.

Yeah, reading the thread you linked, it almost sounds like people are using different programs that happen to have irritatingly similar names.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

I used to have problems until I realised that I had to manually set Steam to operate in offline mode while online. Then it would work fine upon restart. I can now use offline mode as much as I want, until I move into online mode again, then I have to do the restart again.

I've no idea if that's the problem everyone's having — I've not got time to read that linked thread, and I kind of think someone would have suggested this already — but I thought this might be helpful.

This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.

I'm pretty much exclusively talking about unplanned outages or disconnections.

While I do still think it's a minor issue, if you forget to set Steam to offline mode before you on a trip or something, then that's really your own negligence.

Just proves my point about how easy it is to blame pirates for all of your failures.

How come Stardock isn't going out of business despite not using any sort of DRM out of principle?

STEALTH!!!

On Valve offline problems:

Can't you just go to the Steam/steamapps/commmon or Steam/steamapps/*USERNAME* folder and launch the games directly?

Or is it still a requirement to be online?

What do you get if you burn tomatoes? Ash Ketchump.

I've never had an issue with using offline mode. And it happens rarely enough that frankly I'm not seeing the huge issue. I've come to accept that some form of DRM is likely going to exist for most major games for the foreseeable future. Given what total cock-ups most DRM has been Steam's DRM seems like a tiny, tiny, price to pay.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

I have had a fair few issues with Steam needing to be online to get into offline mode. Very frustrating when your internet isn't working.

I tend to avoid Steam games thanks to problems I've had with them.

"You want to see how a human dies? At ramming speed." - Emily Wong.

"BAWWWW!" -Ubisoft

"BAWWWW!" -Gamers

It's a mutual exchange. Game companies screw over gamers, gamers return the favor.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.

^Always the companies who screw first?