» Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:34 am I would like to congratulate you on saying you dislike Steam for "personal reasons". Kudos for you. I'm tired of people pushing their personal reasons as "real factual hard-core reasons" into others 
I can respect personal reasons ^^;
I wouldn't be surprised if future releases are all steam, since online distribution is the trend and I see more and more companies moving towards that (which is very good, probably the best and only good choice companies did to reduce piracy).
One thing that I hope from the bottom of my heart is that Bethesta (or Zenimax) never give in to be "bought" by the likes of Activision or E.A. ... those guys live in the stone age and every company they buy end up severelly .. hmm .. let's say destroyed.
Steam is the least intrusive, easier to use and usually offers more advantages over disavantages when compared to any online distribution or DRM. I wouldn't even call it DRM, they managed to make it so mild that you won't even notice. Some companies will use steam and STILL have on top of that other intrusive DRM - that's a real killer.
As for "I just want to install the game, double click the shortcut and play" - well, that's pretty much what you do with steam anyway. You ****CAN**** create a shortcut on your desktop for any game (right-click game on steam list - create desktop shortcut). And if you are on offline mode, the game will just pop immediatly.
As for "offline mode". If you simply can't get it to offline mode (can't imagine why you wouldn't), just so you know: if Steam can't find a valid internet connection, it will AUTOMATICALLY start in offline mode. So just disable the connection on windows and start the game.
Again, with offline mode you are missing auto-patching and other stuff that I like. When we purchased hard copies, we usually had to find updates for ourselves (the ones who actually knew/care) and install them manually. Now you will have the most updated version without bothering. If that is not a very good advantage of Steam, I don't know what is.
A couple of more performance/user-friendly hints if you dislike Steam that much:
+ at settings, on "IN-GAME", disable Steam Community
+ at settings, on "INTERFACE", disable "Notify me about additions, changes, releases ..."
+ at settings, on "FRIENDS" disable "Automatically sign into Friends ..."
+ make shortcuts to your games, set Steam to offline and on "INTERFACE", disable "Run Steam when my computer starts". That way it will only load when you play a game.
That should get you covered so aside from steam taskbar icon, you won't even notice it's there
I recomment, however, keeping steam on online mode for a couple of weeks everytime you buy a new game so you can get patches/updates. It's very common for new games release some fixes right after launch.
I can respect personal reasons ^^;
I wouldn't be surprised if future releases are all steam, since online distribution is the trend and I see more and more companies moving towards that (which is very good, probably the best and only good choice companies did to reduce piracy).
One thing that I hope from the bottom of my heart is that Bethesta (or Zenimax) never give in to be "bought" by the likes of Activision or E.A. ... those guys live in the stone age and every company they buy end up severelly .. hmm .. let's say destroyed.
Steam is the least intrusive, easier to use and usually offers more advantages over disavantages when compared to any online distribution or DRM. I wouldn't even call it DRM, they managed to make it so mild that you won't even notice. Some companies will use steam and STILL have on top of that other intrusive DRM - that's a real killer.
As for "I just want to install the game, double click the shortcut and play" - well, that's pretty much what you do with steam anyway. You ****CAN**** create a shortcut on your desktop for any game (right-click game on steam list - create desktop shortcut). And if you are on offline mode, the game will just pop immediatly.
As for "offline mode". If you simply can't get it to offline mode (can't imagine why you wouldn't), just so you know: if Steam can't find a valid internet connection, it will AUTOMATICALLY start in offline mode. So just disable the connection on windows and start the game.
Again, with offline mode you are missing auto-patching and other stuff that I like. When we purchased hard copies, we usually had to find updates for ourselves (the ones who actually knew/care) and install them manually. Now you will have the most updated version without bothering. If that is not a very good advantage of Steam, I don't know what is.
A couple of more performance/user-friendly hints if you dislike Steam that much:
+ at settings, on "IN-GAME", disable Steam Community
+ at settings, on "INTERFACE", disable "Notify me about additions, changes, releases ..."
+ at settings, on "FRIENDS" disable "Automatically sign into Friends ..."
+ make shortcuts to your games, set Steam to offline and on "INTERFACE", disable "Run Steam when my computer starts". That way it will only load when you play a game.
That should get you covered so aside from steam taskbar icon, you won't even notice it's there
I recomment, however, keeping steam on online mode for a couple of weeks everytime you buy a new game so you can get patches/updates. It's very common for new games release some fixes right after launch.
Thanks for the reply, I'll give it a try with those settings.
