Is this true? I have been vexed about the whole one-line registration process myself and reading the threads carefully, and in all cases I've been told that it's a one-time activation - after which we could un-install steam if we wanted to (I'm talking about the box-set from a brick and mortar store).



Inconvenient, un-necessary, greedy, intrusive, dissapointing - but not quite evil IMHO. I don't like the trend, but I like the games more.

Okay, so here's my dillemma...My home computer has no internet connection...Casualty of the economy. Is it possible to transfer the activated game from my laptop (Use the Internet connection at work to activate) to my home computer? (Laptop doesn't have the guts to run the game) Not pirating the game simply would like to play the copy I purchase.

Okay, here is the best clarification I can offer: In order to play a game you bought from a brick-and-mortar store you must do a one-time registration online through Steam. After that, you can tell steam to go into "offline mode" so it will not connect to the internet. As far as I know, though, you still need to have Steam installed (but you don't need to have the original CD or CD-key) in order to play the game. I've never actually tested this before, though, because Steam isn't that big a deal to install and leave on your system anymore.

Well, you would need to activate the game on some machine that has the internet while having Steam installed on both, then take the clientregistry.blob file from online PC into the offline PC Steam directory and it SHOULD work in Steam offline mode, though I never tested it myself, but from a technical point it has sense

Perhaps if you were able to copy the entire steam folder onto a medium, then overwrite the one at home. Maybe set the steam at work to offline mode, so when steam opens at home, it will be like that.

Edit: crap ninja'd by a more specific explaination.

Many Thanks :icecream:

And Many thanks to you as well. :icecream:

Nods. I'll find a way to deal with it, one way or another. Thanks for the info.

At minimum I'll follow Tarrant's example and mute it via outbound firewall after initial activation, and leave it at that.

hmm well i guess that gets rid of my DLC buying complications (damn you GFWL) :fallout:

however with fallout 3, in order to use FOSE you needed to deactivate GFWL. will we have to try and find a way to deactivate steam to use a script extender on FONV?

also im a little confused. will you need steam with all PC copies of FONV?

Thank you for finding the words I was looking for.

Can't agree more. Still gonna get the game though.

EDIT: actually quoting the person thanking makes the reply have more sense...

No, you will not need to deactivate Steam. The game will not run without Steam logged in, either in Online or Offline mode anyway. However, Steam devs will likely again provide help in making any FONV script extender work, as they did with previous games.

I have Steam online for Team Fortress 2 goodness anyway, so it really isn't a hassle to me any which way.

what you have to do is take the PC that has the game installed on it to a friends house, activate the game, then you don't ever have to get online to play this game again.




You will have to have the Steam Client running, but you can tweak it so it is basically a local service and needs no connection to the game.





No, that would not work. Steam needs to register the game on the machine it is installed on.

dear bethesda,

i absolutly love fallout, but i won't buy any game that requires steam.
I want to decide on my own what i install on my laptop. i don't let me force to use steam
No one has to know how long, when and which game i play. Even offline steam has to run and i'm sure that it records my datas. when i'm online it will send the datas to valva...
i also don't want to be dependent on steam, i don't think that they will bust for many years, so i can allways reinstall my games, but just the possibility that they could say:"no today you wont play"
ok this will not happen, but i cant even resell a game that i bought.
And i bet in some years there is allway ′s personalized ingame advertisemant.

just important negativ points for me

best regards from germany

Theras, now that's downright irrational. Them saying "no you can't play today"? "I bet they'll hawk ads some years down"?

Seriously?

I'll ask a question here to all the anti-Steam folks... How many are running on computers that have Intel CPUs?

For those of you who do... You do know that Intel is an anticompetitive corporate bully, right? They lock in computer distributors and do many other unfair things to stifle competition. They seem perpetually in court over accusations of it, and actually got stuck with the accusation in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

So why are you using their chips? Why not stick it to them?

And why are you railing against Steam, who acknowledges is DRM aspects, tries to minimize their hassle, and also tries to provide beneficial features while other DRM schemes actively get in your way? Why is Intel, an unashamed corporate bully, okay and Steam not okay?

Steam is a content delivery service, first and foremost.

They aren't, which is why I don't use them. But that whole argument is irrelevant as the discussion is about Steam and not Intel. But to continue the corporate bully talk anyway, why is it that as a content delivery service it got pretty much the same "monopoly" as Microsoft have on Windows, yet here it's a good thing?


Not for the majority of those who buy the game in retail. For those it's an unneeded DRM system. If you like to buy content on the Steam store, by all means go ahead, use it. But forcing it to people who don't, well, it's just abusive.

I was attempting to put things in perspective with the Intel bit. It didn't apply to you, from the looks.

And the alternatives to Steam are far worse. Would you rather they have the SecuROM setup that FO3 was supposed to have? Or GFWL? Or worse, UbiSoft? Like it or not, piracy is FUD to game company execs. Consider yourself lucky that they decided to go with Steamworks. For those of us familiar with Steam, it was a good decision. For those who aren't familiar with Steam... well, just look through this thread.

I used to be a Steamhater back in its nascent days. Had it in my sig on several forums: "STEAM IS A SHODDY USELESS BUG-PLAGUED PIECE OF &*#$". However, after learning that gamers really don't like being denied the games they paid for, it seems Valve really shaped Steam up. Since I picked it back up around February this year, I haven't had a single problem with it. So take a deep breath, and look at this rationally: Game execs are apprehensive about Piracy. Other companies just go with DRM schemes that do nothing for the consumer and actually make it a hassle, the worst of which being Ubisoft's permanent online requirement. gamesas went with Steam, which tries to be as minimally intrusive about it as possible, and also provide services to the consumer as well, like free re-DLing. And this is after gamesas itself got an earful from the PC crowd about GFWL.

Um...it's not a monopoly. Stardock has a similar service. Besides, Valve was the first to even attempt to create something like Steam, so of course they're going to be the strongest in that market. If Valve is a monopoly in Steam then every company that pioneers a new market and doesn't have a lot of competition for a while is a monopoly. Having little competition in a niche market does not automatically make a monopoly.


See, here's the thing: we don't get to decide whether or not it's needed. We're not game publishers (well, most of us). Companies get to decide how they're going to package their products, and we get to decide whether or not we want to buy them. If the game publisher decides they need DRM, then they have the right to use DRM. If you don't like the DRM they're using then don't buy the game.

What amazes me is the huge backlash over Steam, but people seem to be ok with things like SecuROM, which make changes to the way your OS works without asking. I'm not exaggerating when I say that's straight-up vandalism. How is that not 1000x worse than an otherwise non-invasive one-time online activation? :blink: Like I've said before, there are way, WAY worse forms of DRM than Steam. If a publisher is intent on using some kind of DRM beyond a CD key or simple disc check I'd prefer Steam over just about anything else out there. Sure, in an ideal world there would be no DRM, but unfortunately publishers gonna be publishers.

Abusive? Really? Compared to what? Is there somebody holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy video games? Don't you think we're being a little melodramatic about all this?


Just to clear a few things up:

- You don't have to install on-disc games through Steam. You can install from the disc so you don't have to wait for a download.
- After you've registered the game you can run Steam in offline mode so you no longer need an internet connection. (I know you all have an internet connection adequate for the activation because you're reading this. :whisper: )
- You have to keep Steam installed to run games that use Steam for DRM. It's not taking up a significant amount of HDD space and only has to run when you're playing a Steam-registered game.

Outside of the whole DRM argument, though, Steam is actually a really good thing for PC gamers. Steam has almost single-handedly revived the indie game market. The barriers to entry used to be pretty huge for indie developers. The only way for them to really get their games out there was to find a publisher that was willing to support them. If they couldn't get publisher support they were out of luck. Steam has provided tools for indie developers to package, sell, and distribute their games on the cheap, which has allowed a lot of indie developers to compete in a market that used to be dominated by publishers. Excellent indie games like Trine, Torchlight, < insert huge list of amazing indie titles > may never have seen the light of day on the PC if not for services like Steam. I just wanted to point out that Steam is not a heavy-handed corporate bully. If anything they've helped the little dev shops succeed in a market controlled by corporate bullies. I feel this is important, because the big publishers don't like to take risks on games that don't fit their tried-and-true profiles, which is why we tend to see a lot of innovation from the indie devs and a lot of the same over and over from the big publishers.

Like I said, I don't think there's anyone (publishers included) that wants to use DRM. I'm very much against it. The only reason I'm arguing pro-Steam is that most other DRM publishers are using nowadays is WAY worse than Steam.


Sometimes developers fix bugs. Sometimes.

Honestly, if people want to bash Steam based off of how it ran six years ago (or worse; bash it with no experience using the program what so ever), that's fine. Less people clogging up the servers. But don't complain about something that is accepted by the general gaming populous as the best digital distribution and DRM platform currently being used. You can get with it or you can get left behind.

Would it be nice to just be able to install the game, and nothing else, and get to playing? Sure, I guess, but I'm smart enough to realize that that time has passed. But I'm also smart enough to see that the benefits to Steam far outweigh the downsides. Not to mention that some of it's features are great regardless of whether on not their main purpose is to counter-balance the image it has as being a DRM monster.

I recently installed Steam a few weeks ago and had the same issues I had years ago with it. I know a lot of people who use Steam and have had no issues, but I have and the only reason I get mad about it is because I'd like to play the games I paid for. Another bad thing about Steam is people can get their account hijacked easy, but I will give them some credit Valve has good costumer support and will try to help people get their account back.

Really? Maybe it's something else going on with your computer and not Steam? What is the problem, exactly?


How are people getting their accounts hijacked? Are they giving their passwords to people? Besides, people have their Xbox Live accounts hijacked too, so it's not something that's unique to Steam by any stretch.

More than likely the same sort of people that reply to the emails requesting all your bank details so they can recieve a large amount of money from some fellow in Nigera.

I've never heard of hacking actually occuring and it really is more likely to be a case of stupid people giving out their passwords.

As I said I do not hate steam, I use steam and at most am indifferent about it.

Yes, I know that buying installing playing is a thing of the past, still, I would like that to return.

If I buy a game trough steam, and have to use steam to play it, it is pretty obvious. The point I have is that I have to use a third party program to play a game or get content for it.
I was arguing against the GFWL when the FO3 DLC came out as well, due to it's limited payment methods as number one.

Becuase I couldn't pay for the DLC I had to wait for the damn GOTY before I was able to play them legally. When a fan of the game and series, that's pretty tough to do.

I understand that it is to counter piracy, but really, bothering the people that actually pay for your games while virtually non of the pirates are affected isn't a good thing.

That's my point. It's basically like walking into a store, buy the things, pay them, and then just before you actually start to put them in bags they ask if they can search your bags and pockets.

You've paid for something, but still get treated like a criminal.

Seriously, I do not have anything against Steam and do think that it's the best program in its field, and am glad that they have chosen steam instead of any other program. I just rather had they hadn't used any program at all.

S/he could be at the library you know.

In addition: I'd rather have to deal with Steamworks than with Ubisoft's Loose-the-connection-to-the-server-instantly-crashes-the-game type of DRM

I don't mind Steam I like it. Least you have a option for connecting into Steam servers because of updates or disconnecting from Steams servers if you going to a lan party that have no internet. Least you can still play the game when not log in. You have to log off before you go to the lan. One good thing about Steam I like. Before you do a major up grade to your computer, you can put that Steam folder which you everything you have in it put it somewhere safe like a external drive. Afterward you put back you your C drive and use it as usual. I did not like steam once because I have dial-up. Now I have boardband. There are worst out there. Like Battle net and Ubisoft's what I here about them. I will not get anything from them. To my shock World in Conflict is in Ubisoft's hands.