I went trough all the nicely written skyrim/steam FAQ, and I understand that up to know one needs to run steam to play the game.
Does anybody know if it will be released in the future a version of skyrim that does not need the installation of steam in order to play? I own Morrowind and Oblivion and I was wondering if such version of the game is planned or not. Maybe such version could be sold at a higher price compared to the one with steam, and many many many people that don't want steam running on the machine will buy it.

no because of piracy

No Steam will be required, but there are ways around that, which aren't allowed to be discussed.

as of now, steam is fire-walled from snooping my system.

The chances of that happening is you winning the lottery 3 times in a row on the same day.

It seems more likely these many p[eople are either svcking it up and using Steam or are playing on a console. Honestly, Steam is not that bad, you only need the client to launch the game, once its installed and verified just set steam to offline mode. Atleast they aint usin Origin.

I know that at the launch it is made because of piracy. But even so, I read from the forum that the game is pirated anyway (even if not on day 1). But when most of the copies have been sold and thieves who get pirated software got it anyway, maybe in 1 year, it could be a great idea to catch customers that are not buying the game because of steam..... maybe 12/12/12 would be a nice release date for that.

If you still have your original (before steam tried to ninjapatch in more drm) you can continue playing without steam, considering you bought the game and have not downloaded any of their files from outside sources, it is not allowed to distribute these pre-patch exes though.

I agree that Steam isn't bad at all. I was forced to get it when I bought Empire: Total War. I was not happy about it and I was [censored]y about it for a few weeks. Looking back, the only reason I felt this way was because I thought it was foolish to have to install an entirely different program to play a single game. But, since then, I have learned that it is quite useful in it's own right. It's been a few years now and I haven't had a single problem with it "spying on my computer" or whatever people say that doesn't make any sense. Traditionally, those types of arguements come from people who just don't like DRM because it interferes with the rights of an end user, which it does. Don't fault Steam for this though because they are taking the added DRM features (which are demanded from game developers because piracy is so abundant) and at least adding features to help you play with friends, purchase games electronically, download any game you have registered through them on any computer and other useful things. And with the added news about using steam as a way to streamline the download of player made mods it makes me even more excited to use it. There always have been and always will be minor bugs and glitches associated with steam, but the pros far outweigh the cons. So, I would ask from people who are upset about being required to use steam as a DRM feature to think of it more as an xbox live or windows live feature that doesn't cost money/svck balls.

Steam doesn't even fix piracy. I could go pirate Skyrim right now if I wanted to.

..Which would be backwards since I already payed for it. But I could! <_<

It wasn't intended to. It is intended to deter piracy by making the DRM software be useful in other facets. It really is as much of a benefit for users as it is for game developers. There are FAR worse DRM options than steam. It's why GTAIV for the PC cost $40 less than the same game on consoles only a month after it was released on PC. Bad DRM hurts both the players and the developers. Also, steam has discounts every once in awhile. I guarantee you that within 6 months Skyrim will be 25% off during some weekend deal on Steam.

And yet for some of us it makes that "other" PC version all the more tempting since the user has more control, & less bloat to deal with

I not condoning stealing so I'm flat not getting Skyrim like some other TES/Beth fans aren't, I just wish Bethesda would acknowledge that not all their fans can or will use Steam

I was feeling the EXACT same way a few years ago. But the only bloat is 50MB of hard drive space and 12MB of RAM running in the background. There really is nothing more than that. And as for control goes - you can still mod the game, you'll still have access to the world editor, I mean what more is there? The game directory is a tad harder to get to and it auto updates, but is that really a problem?

I was referring to the "Social gaming" aspect actually (chat, achievements, & the like) when I mentioned "bloat"



the choice of what patch to use for one

I truly feel the 56k connection I have(& only one available) is not enough to effectively use the Steam system

I am not against users that can & want to use Steam though

Hey, add me as a friend on steam and I'll message you all the time!

does the occasional acheivement popping up really ruin the experience for you?

Better message me here , I don't use Steam at all, not after that one time I thought I'd give it a chance when a game(disc) I preordered off Amazon came "steamed" *shudders at the memory*

yes, it breaks immersion for me