I've seen the advice "take the computer to a friend's place" offered as a way to activate the disc version of New Vegas & to me that raises a question...

Would those people also need to take the computers back to the friends' places if they want to keep up with the game patches or can Beth/Obsydian have regular patch executable files as an option (like previous beth games). I know it's typical to have the patches exclusively through Steam for a steam game but for some that doesn't seem very convenient.

If this game uses Steam then I presume that patching will need to be done by using Steam as well.

It might be an idea to purchase a cheap wireless modem. You can get them for under like, $50.

I believe all patching goes through Steam.

Yep, one would need to get patches through Steam for PC games. I have several folks who bring their xbox and/or PS3's to my home to get their patches or DLCs since they have no internet at home because they live off the grid.

If history repeats patching won't need to be done on Steam. With Fallout 3 Bethesda produced very few useful patches. Vast majority of the patches were solely achievements, and the rest actually broke the game. Thousands of bug reports when they broke vats with an achievement patch. I gave up after waiting for months for a patch from Bethesda, and used a mod to fix the broken vats. :sadvaultboy:


Hopefully Obsidian will lead the patch team, and not Bethesda.


Only game I play through Steam atm is Metro 2033, Steam doesn't do a disc check for it to run, or patch.

so Beth/Obsidian legally cannot release a regular patch if they wanted to. well here's to hoping future beth games wont be Steam exclusives.

I have no clue about the legalities but I can say that I am happy they have found a new way to deliver patches and content other than the overloaded servers/mirror sites and such of yesteryear. It was sometimes a nightmare trying to get it downloaded when they came out.

It's just how they deliver the patches and extra content now. Fallout:3 was GFWL and while that was better than when they did it themselves, there were still problems. Steam has a proven record of getting the content out there much more quickly. :shrug:

Xbox will be getting them through Xbox live and so on and so forth.

Personally I never did did get anything for FO3 from GFWL. I typically got my patches from the nexus & got the DLC from the Goty edition

I can understand what you say though, I was just thinking of a secondary means of patching for those whom the typical Steam patching method isn't the best fit. like someone going to your place with a thumb drive instead of needing to bring the whole computer.