Hello everyone.

Long time Elderscrolls fan but first time poster who would like some help (one way or another) to help me make up my mind.

I have Skyrim for PS3. I must have been very lucky since I did not have as many issues as some seemed to have had but thats not to say I didnt have issues. Post patch I have more game hangs than ever ... go figure.

Anyway I digress. I was at some stage always going to get Skyrim for PC since there are a few mods underway already that I will be eagerly awaiting but ... steam?? Seriously??

My one encounter with steam to date was not a happy afair.
Problems I had with steam (doesnt even deserve a capital S) where:
Waiting in a queue to download ... excuse me I have to wait to download are you serious?? Why not just install from disc for cryin out load?
Anyway once I actually got it installed and with a slight amount of satisfaction (finally) I started the game and I was put into a waiting queue to play ... Your kidding me right??
That last one was encoutered most often ... I do not have to wait to play a game thank you very much steamworks!!
I never got to play that game, I dont remember what happened to that disc nor do I remember the login/password I used either, why would you with such a terrible service?

So today I head to the store and buy Skyrim for PC, head home and start the installation only to discover C:\...\...\steam (no I didnt read the back of the box since I didnt think Bethesda would be stupid enough to go the whole steam route nor do the stores in my part of the world forewarn you). Yet another game I want spoilt by the craptastic steam ... awesome.

Anyway technological advances being what they are may well have resolved the issues with steam so can anyone tell me:
How full of pain and missery steam is or is not whichever the case maybe (I dont mind hearing your full praise or rants)
If there is going to be a NON-steam release (fingers crossed)
And how will mods be applied to the steam release?

The countdown to return the uninstalled/non-activated dvd to the store or not is now on

No pain or misery here, aside from Steam auto-applying patches as soon as they're released, even if you set Skyrim to not auto-update. This is solvable by playing with Steam in offline mode after the initial authentication (so the updates can't happen) or making a backup of the game directory (so you can revert to a known-good version if the update breaks anything).



I'm tempted to just answer "no, there will not", but I don't like to say "never". Instead I'll just call it extremely unlikely. I don't think I've ever heard of a Steam-only game releasing a non-Steam version and Bethesda has not announced any plans to do so.



Unzip them into the Data/ directory, use Wrye Bash, etc., exactly the same as Oblivion or Fallout 3. They're also talking about integrating the CS with Steam Workshop, which will allow you to download and install mods through Steam, but Bethesda has said that manual installation of mods downloaded from third-party sites will still be supported.