Civ 5/Steam:Offline Mode Question

paradigmx · May 27, 2010

mjs0 said:
To be fair, this is somewhat understating the situation...

What you say is true if the customer has physical media to install from and activation is all that is required. However, it is not unusual for products to have sizable patches available on day 0 and if the product being installed has any sort of patch available then Steam will insist on installing that patch before first use.

Even a modest size patch, 50Mb say, will be, at the very least, a big inconvenience to somebody with only a dial-up connection. Of course this also doesn't take into account any necessary updates to the Steam Client.

Not as important but also worth highlighting is the fact that somebody with dial-up internet is effectively denied the ability to play as Babylon because buying and downloading the deluxe edition is not an option for them.

you can disable patches on steam games, thus you will not download the patch, thus, no 50mb to download, thus you only have to activate once and never go online again. If you want the patch you have to suffer through a 50mb download regardless of if it's through steam or somewhere else, so what's the big deal?

bigdog5994 · May 27, 2010

Empire Total war has a 15 gig patch that is required to even start the game

mjs0 · May 27, 2010

Xiao Xiong said:
Which is better than the alternative: You install a buggy, low quality game on day 0 and have a horrible experience. After suffering in agony and banging your head in frustration you notice the sizable patch on the developer's website and start the same lengthy download that Steam would have forced, and then waste time figuring out how to apply the patch.

Personally I feel Steam is doing me a service in this case, I would much rather wait for the update and have a quality experience then wind up in the hospital bleeding from the forehead from having banged my head against the wall in frustration over game bugs.

If you insist on buying a DVD and you only have a dial-up connection there is really NO solution for you other than to wait until the 2nd batch of DVD's ship and you can get a copy of the game that does not require a big download, no matter whether it be through steam or manually downloaded off a website.

I have absolutely nothing against Steam for my situation and I plan on pre-ordering the deluxe edition and buying a physical copy (some minor concerns about parental controls for my young kids with Steam but I can work around that).
The download requirement is a non-issue for me as I have a 22Mb+ connection so large updates are not going to bother me, and like yourself I am in general happy to have the update available for me. (I do have an issue with later updates being forced on me but more on that below.)

I do however believe that this is a real and significant issue for those on dial-up or with download quotas and some of the earlier remarks (not just the one I quoted) were belittling those concerns and ignoring inconvenient truths.

Xiao Xiong said:
Note that yes you can turn updates off in steam...

How does one accomplish this? I have been unable to find a way that works consistently and in a user-friendly way.
Do you mean updates of games or updates of the Steam client?

On a game by game basis there is a disable automatic update option but there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the functionality of that option; it does not allow you to prevent updates (unless you are strictly playing offline only); for any other situation it only gives you control over the timing of the download.

paradigmx said:
you can disable patches on steam games, thus you will not download the patch, thus, no 50mb to download, thus you only have to activate once and never go online again. If you want the patch you have to suffer through a 50mb download regardless of if it's through steam or somewhere else, so what's the big deal?

In fact what that option does is turn off the automatic, preemptive, background downloading of patches for a game (which is a good option if you have a game you don't play anymore and don't want to update). This option explicitly states that updates will only be downloaded and applied when you want them BUT running the game when online counts as manually requesting an update! So in fact there is no way to avoid updates if you want to play online or just use the in-game community features. (There are pros and cons to this and I understand why you want all online players at the same patch level but it is likely to cause issues for some people, just observe the trouble BTS3.19 caused.).

See this Steam forum thread as one example of discussion on this topic and for extra details.

In fact, things are actually slightly worse in practise because if you are online and you start the game Steam notes that an update is available and after that will not let you run the game either online or offline until the game has been patched!
That's right if you accidentally run Civ online just once you are hosed.

This option also doesn't help when you reinstall because my understanding, based on multiple sources, is that Steam insists on installing all current updates before letting you play any game you install.

The net of this is that if you purchase and install physical media you cannot play the game until you have downloaded and installed all the current patches. It appears there is no way to 'go offline' after activation but before Steam notices a patch is available, at which point of course the game is set to not run until the patch is installed.

For most of those of us lucky enough to have an unlimited high-speed download this is somewhere between tolerable and positively fine, but those who do not have high-speed internet deserve sympathy at the least...not the platitudes and half truths.

In addition:
This doesn't of course address clashes between patches and mods. There were in Civ4 very good reasons for not wanting to automatically apply some patches because they messed up some mods, ruined PBEM games etc. etc.
We don't know if Civ5 will have these issues yet...but unless the programmers have been especially clever in a way I cannot foresee then giving us access to the equivalent of the famous Civ4 DLL source code (which is surely necessary if civ5 modding is to be as unprecedented as promised) will ensure that this same issue occurs with Civ5.
The constant danger of accidentally updating Civ5 when there is no way to back out a patch will surely lead to many unhappy customers even including some of us lucky souls on broadband.

I have done extensive research (not just Wikipedia

)to arrive at this conclusion. If any of the comments I have made are verifiably wrong I will actually be very happy and I would welcome correction (with quoted sources). I am not looking to hate on Steam or any of its fans just understand how this decision by 2K/Firaxis will affect all of us without any of the rancour that has unfortunately filled the discussion until now.

Willem · May 27, 2010

Xiao Xiong said:
After suffering in agony and banging your head in frustration you notice the sizable patch on the developer's website and start the same lengthy download that Steam would have forced, and then waste time figuring out how to apply the patch.

Or you can go to a friend's or family member's home who does have broadband and download the patch through their system. Or even get it from where you work. Those options are no longer available when using Steam. And I'm sure most people know how to double-click on an .exe file.

If you insist on buying a DVD and you only have a dial-up connection there is really NO solution for you other than to wait until the 2nd batch of DVD's ship and you can get a copy of the game that does not require a big download, no matter whether it be through steam or manually downloaded off a website.

See above.

frekk said:
Most people don't have dialup modems anymore.

22% of Canadians live in areas that don't have access to broadband services, and have to rely on dialup. I suspect the number of Americans will be about the same. While that's certainly not the majority, it's still a sizable chunk of the population.

Xiao Xiong said:
It was the people without internet that I said probably don't even have computers.

There's lots of people who have computers but don't have any need for a home internet connection. They can access all they need to where they work, so why spend the extra money for a home connection? Or they simply don't care enough about the internet to even bother. A recent survey showed about 10% of Canadians who did have a computer, and the financial means, just didn't bother with a home connection. Yet I'm sure some of them at least played the odd game here and there. The Civ franchise has always attracted a large number of those casual players. But they'll soon find themselves kicked out of that market.

fishmonger · May 27, 2010

The_Coyote said:
I do not question that steams offers you an use, but all feature i know (and this can be done without trying it) have absolut no use for me. So the postive use of steam for me is zero. Steam itself comes for free (only counting money), but requires a registration. So the use of the deal is now is 0 - x (yes, i value a registration (especially if it´s a firm on the other side) as something with negative use for me - perhaps for you this is nothing to bother, would be a minir negative or zero use altering).

Registering takes very little time, and is of no cost to you. How is that a negative?

So it´s already a negative deal for me, a deal which produces a use of -x, something which i would avoid. Expanding this, you hopeful can quickly see - depending on how certain aspects (some examples i´m aware: privacy, future development, dlc, contract safety, trust) are weighted or expected (or seen in steam, or ...) - steam can produce a quite immense negative use. It´s also possible that the (anticipated) negative use (steam, costs of civ5, ...) will outperform the positive use seen in Civ5 (fun, ...).

But you can't make a fair assessment on how steam handles these things without any personal experience.

Willem said:
Sorry, but Ori has shown that this isn't true. Even if you play in offline mode with no internet connection it will pester you to connect.

That's a lie. You activate once. You have to log in to the steam account to play. I didn't say anything

I can be anti-murder without ever having committed it myself.

Completely irrelevant. There's alot of reasons to not want the software on a system.

No, it's very relevant. If you haven't used it you cannot fairly judge the positives and negatives of using it.

Man, what an absurd comment. I have a decent computer but don't have a persistent internet connection, I have to log on. There's also lots of people that still need to use dial-up because broadband isn't available in their area. And there's plenty of people who can afford a connection but don't bother for various reasons, like being able to go online at work, or they just aren't interested in the Internet at all. Then there's people like students that may have had a computer given to them but are trying to save a few dollars by not connecting.

Bad luck then. Don't buy civ5 and see how little the difference you and your friends make to the sales.

Willem said:
Or you can go to a friend's or family member's home who does have broadband and download the patch through their system. Or even get it from where you work. Those options are no longer available when using Steam. And I'm sure most people know how to double-click on an .exe file.

Wrong again. You can do this with steam by backing up the game files.

22% of Canadians live in areas that don't have access to broadband services, and have to rely on dialup. I suspect the number of Americans will be about the same. While that's certainly not the majority, it's still a sizable chunk of the population.

But not a sizable chunk of the target demographic for Civ5. Most gamers will have broadband. 2k aren't trying to sell to rednecks.

There's lots of people who have computers but don't have any need for a home internet connection. They can access all they need to where they work, so why spend the extra money for a home connection? Or they simply don't care enough about the internet to even bother. A recent survey showed about 10% of Canadians who did have a computer, and the financial means, just didn't bother with a home connection. Yet I'm sure some of them at least played the odd game here and there. The Civ franchise has always attracted a large number of those casual players. But they'll soon find themselves kicked out of that market.

Civ is not a game which targets casual gamers.

PieceOfMind · May 28, 2010

Xiao Xiong said:
It was the people without internet that I said probably don't even have computers. And yes, I expect dial-up users are not a huge market for games.

I think you are over simplifying things. This might not be true for people who tend to live in their parents' basements for 10 years

but many people move around a lot, from city to city or town to town. I myself have lived in at least 4 different places over the past 5 years or so. Some of those places were more temporary than others and while I could obviously easily bring my desktop computer to wherever I lived, signing up for a persistent internet connection was an obstacle. Where I live internet contracts are usually a minimum of 6 months, and going with 6 months is usually the least economical too.

People have mentioned people stationed in Iraq as an example, but you don't even need examples that extreme. Simply people who don't have such permanent housing arrangements are hindered by requirements of internet connectivity.

Activations requiring internet will for the most part be something these people can sort out but it's an extroardinary hassle for someone to go through while they're perhaps living somewhere for 2 months that doesn't have an internet connection.

I don't know much about this free AOL dialup thing as I don't live in the US but I don't think we have similar things here, and it's hardly an adequate solution anyway as it does still require the renting of a phone line and a physical modem. Also the size of patches probably means you'll need at minimum a broadband connection anyway. That is unless Steam allows downloadable patch files which can be executed on a computer different to the one that downloaded it. My understanding at this time is this is not possible with Steam i.e. that you can only update the game if it is connected to the internet but please correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps it is up to the publisher to allow such offline methods of patching?

Back in about January of this year the only way my computer had contact with the internet was via a 2GB usb stick I would use to transport files to and from a computer which did have internet. With that sort of "internet access" I was still able to happily play PBEM games and single player games. I even took the opportunity to format my harddrive/s in that time and reinstall things. I do not know if it would have been possible for me to backup an activated game such that when I reinstalled it or restored the backup I wouldn't have to activate it again, but assuming it's not possible, I would have had to go without civ5 (if I had it) for a couple of months.

So for someone like myself, maybe 5% to 10% of the time on average I am living somewhere without a persistent internet connection. It is obviously not because I'm too poor to afford playing video games but simply because at some points in life it is not desirable to be paying for an internet connection or simply not practical like if I was living in a more remote area for a couple of months.

It really is quite arrogant to assert that all PC gamers always have a persistent internet connection and that those who don't are in a vanishingly small minority. You'd be basically be asserting that most gamers rarely move house, but hey, maybe that is true?

PieceOfMind · May 28, 2010

fishmonger said:
No, it's very relevant. If you haven't used it you cannot fairly judge the positives and negatives of using it.

If he had used Steam, you would still disagree with every complaint he had about it so why does it matter?
I've used Steam and all of a sudden any complaints I have are no longer replied to with "use steam and find out" but rather things more like "most people don't have those problems" and so forth.

Most importantly, many of the problems people have with using Steam don't require direct experience with it to judge. For example, you don't need to have used Steam to know that it is quite persistent with the updating of its steam client software. You only have to read the experiences of others.

Personally I am not entirely happy with the fact that software that is required for me to play the game has as probably its primary goal the marketing of games to me. While I understand that many services that are provided to us free will come with advertising, I still consider that marketing or advertising to be overall a downside. I'm probably fairly unique in that view though. It's kinda like saying even if I will want a game, I don't necessarily want more temptations to buy it. Face it, there is an element of impulse-buy marketing used by Steam. I have seen this myself in their practice of "free game weekends" where you can download and play the game free and at the same time they sell it at a reduced price for a limited time. People are forced to make a fairly timely decision directly after they have had their first experience (which is usually positive) with it.

While I am likely to buy Civ5 despite the fact it requires Steam, it is likely there are few other games I would buy at full price that require Steam. I bought GalCiv2 the other day and was quite pleased to find there was no internet connection required for the installation. I will have no trouble installing this game ever, so long as I have a computer and a power point providing the electricity. Backwards compatibility of the tech of computers might eventually become a hassle but it's not a hassle that wouldn't have happened if the game was Steam based either.

isndl · May 28, 2010

Xiao Xiong said:
You would hear about it more. CS:S players are notorious whiners and whenever there is a problem they all pile into the forums and raise holy hell. Moreover it's a voice enabled game, and whenever anyone has had trouble with anything you will hear them moaning about it in game.

So I guess it's an informal survey, but from playing CS:S and from several other games with voice enabled / community features I hear very few complaints about *steam*.

What you hear them whining about all the time is VAC.

From my experience in CS:S, I haven't heard that much whining about any sort of problems, let alone about Steam. The voice communications were rarely used for generic chatting as I recall, though it depends a lot on what servers you frequent. Frankly, I haven't found CS:S players to be any worse whiners than players of other games, simply replace the subject with another appropriate for the context (e.g. PunkBuster instead of VAC).

I will admit that I started playing CS:S relatively late, so I may have missed any initial furor over the adoption of Steam, but I am given to understand that Steam did genuinely have widespread issues in those days, so such whining may be entirely justified. I simply haven't seen or heard of it recently.

Xiao Xiong said:
Which is better than the alternative: You install a buggy, low quality game on day 0 and have a horrible experience. After suffering in agony and banging your head in frustration you notice the sizable patch on the developer's website and start the same lengthy download that Steam would have forced, and then waste time figuring out how to apply the patch.

Personally I feel Steam is doing me a service in this case, I would much rather wait for the update and have a quality experience then wind up in the hospital bleeding from the forehead from having banged my head against the wall in frustration over game bugs.

If you insist on buying a DVD and you only have a dial-up connection there is really NO solution for you other than to wait until the 2nd batch of DVD's ship and you can get a copy of the game that does not require a big download, no matter whether it be through steam or manually downloaded off a website.

Note that yes you can turn updates off in steam...

This is hyperbole made all the more insulting by the implied idea that Steam's magical presence prevents bugs from occurring. If the game is so bugged as to necessitate zero-day patches for a functional game, it is extremely likely that additional patches will follow in short order, and you're going to have a devil of a time playing that game regardless. It's simply a poor product, and Steam does not somehow increase the quality.

The insinuation that installing a patch is an arduous process is similarly misleading. Nearly every patch issued from a major game developer in the past decade is packaged as an installer; all you have to do is double-click the executable and it does the rest on its' own. If you're incapable of doing that without difficulty, I would have to wonder how you managed to install the game in the first place.

The exact same functionality you've described can be just as easily implemented with a simple 'Check for updates when launched?' option in the game itself. It doesn't have to automatically download the patch, just inform the user that such a patch is available, and from there it's up to the user to decide if it's necessary.

fishmonger · May 28, 2010

PieceOfMind said:
If he had used Steam, you would still disagree with every complaint he had about it so why does it matter?
I've used Steam and all of a sudden any complaints I have are no longer replied to with "use steam and find out" but rather things more like "most people don't have those problems" and so forth.

Most steam "problems" experienced can easily be solved, or aren't relevant to the majority of users. It's impossible to please everyone, but as far as drm goes steam is very generous in what you can actually do.

Most importantly, many of the problems people have with using Steam don't require direct experience with it to judge. For example, you don't need to have used Steam to know that it is quite persistent with the updating of its steam client software. You only have to read the experiences of others.

My experience contradicts the suggestion that steam is persistent when trying to update the client. It continues to allow me to play when the update is being downloaded, and it asks me before it installs the update.

Personally I am not entirely happy with the fact that software that is required for me to play the game has as probably its primary goal the marketing of games to me. While I understand that many services that are provided to us free will come with advertising, I still consider that marketing or advertising to be overall a downside. I'm probably fairly unique in that view though. It's kinda like saying even if I will want a game, I don't necessarily want more temptations to buy it. Face it, there is an element of impulse-buy marketing used by Steam. I have seen this myself in their practice of "free game weekends" where you can download and play the game free and at the same time they sell it at a reduced price for a limited time. People are forced to make a fairly timely decision directly after they have had their first experience (which is usually positive) with it.

Fair enough. That's your choice.

It's the people who look for the non-existent flaws based off 2nd hand information that I have a problem with, personally.

While I am likely to buy Civ5 despite the fact it requires Steam, it is likely there are few other games I would buy at full price that require Steam. I bought GalCiv2 the other day and was quite pleased to find there was no internet connection required for the installation. I will have no trouble installing this game ever, so long as I have a computer and a power point providing the electricity. Backwards compatibility of the tech of computers might eventually become a hassle but it's not a hassle that wouldn't have happened if the game was Steam based either.

It's an unfortunate reality that major developers will put DRM on their games. So I'd rather it be steam than some other drm that limits you to three installs and requires a constant internet connection to even play.

Willem · May 28, 2010

fishmonger said:
2k aren't trying to sell to rednecks.

Bigot!

PieceOfMind · May 28, 2010

fishmonger said:
Most steam "problems" experienced can easily be solved, or aren't relevant to the majority of users. It's impossible to please everyone, but as far as drm goes steam is very generous in what you can actually do.

Exactly. And that is why it should be unsurprising that not everyone is happy with Steam. It's not some collective paranoia going on around here (though a few might literally be paranoid) (not that I'm implying you said that). It's just a bunch of people who have some problems with steam and so are voicing their disappointment at it being required.

My experience contradicts the suggestion that steam is persistent when trying to update the client. It continues to allow me to play when the update is being downloaded, and it asks me before it installs the update.

I've been unable to run Steam while the internet connection was down because it was trying to update itself. Also, my experience tells me that when Steam is updating, you have to wait til it's finished before you can use the steam client. It doesn't usually take long if the internet connection is stable however.

Fair enough. That's your choice.

It's the people who look for the non-existent flaws based off 2nd hand information that I have a problem with, personally.

That's pretty reasonable.

It's an unfortunate reality that major developers will put DRM on their games. So I'd rather it be steam than some other drm that limits you to three installs and requires a constant internet connection to even play.

From what I've read, usually the DRM that limits you to a certain number of installs, the customer support is usually understanding of people who contact them asking for more validations because they've run out. This is the impression I got with DCS blackshark which uses Starforce, but I doubt many people reading this forum have that game. IIRC it has something like 8 activations and 8 deactivations (so you can reinstall windows without using up an activation) and it refreshes like 1 activation a year.
That game included a separate manual for Starforce :eek:

and it was literally more than 20 pages or so explaining all the procedures you have to go through. It was a major turn off to me. If I had a problem with the game, going through that manual would be a PITA. This is why I do sympathise with the argument that Steam is one of the least annoying forms of DRM. I just think publishers could be a bit more creative with their DRM like Stardock has been than just following the industry standard of inconveniencing the customer.

In the end, the fact is that by using online activation DRM you dissuade some people from buying your game just so you can prevent some people from playing your game for free. Especially considering that many people who play pirated games probably later buy the game if they find it worthy and would appreciate the online features, it's my view that a little piracy is not that bad a thing in the long run anyway. Maybe if a game is boring and takes an hour to play and there's no incentive to register the piracy would be a big concern.

Commander Bello · May 28, 2010

paradigmx said:
you can disable patches on steam games, thus you will not download the patch, thus, no 50mb to download, thus you only have to activate once and never go online again. If you want the patch you have to suffer through a 50mb download regardless of if it's through steam or somewhere else, so what's the big deal?

But the initial sequence will be that Steam updates itself and the relevant game has to be 100% updated too, in order to allow for offline mode, no?

If the above stands true, then you would have exactly described the big issue you are asking about.

To the best of my knowledge, the process is as follows (I am referring to the way of having bought a physical copy of the game, since that is what you are referring to):

1. Download Steam (if not included on the CD/DVD)
2. Steam updates itself completely (unknown amount of data needed)
3. Activate game in your account
4. Download all available patches for that game (before it doesn't read 100% complete, you cannot play the game either online or offlline)
5. Set Steam to so-called "offline mode"
6. Restart Steam
7. Play offline

Bottom line: you have to download all available Steam and game patches first. This seems to contradict with your statement quoted above.

Sterf · May 28, 2010

bigdog5994 said:
Empire Total war has a 15 gig patch that is required to even start the game

Do you own ETW? Did you have to download a 15gig 'patch'? You're just repeating crap you saw one idiot user telling on some forum somewhere, that I can't find any info on anywhere. All I can find is that the patch was about 100MB large. That's about the third time you're spreading that lie.

Alki · May 28, 2010

I do. Bought it on Steam too. There was a big update at some point but I wasn't playing Empire at the time so didn't notice till after the fact.

White Elk · May 28, 2010

White Elk said:
To be clear: if your PC is connected to the net, Steam will be phoning home to look for updates.
If it finds a client update, offline mode will not work until that update has been installed.

eireksten said:
Any source for this?

The following quotes all come from the Steam Users' Forums. Those four threads are just a few of those which I decided to bookmark... hoping they might be updated with new info. In the three weeks since learning that Steam was compulsory for Civ5, I have been periodically monitoring the Steam forums and other sources. I have read enough complaints and statements about the buggy offline mode to confidently say that it is something which has an unacceptably high probability to cause me grief!

Offline Mode STILL Doesn't Work

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1251836

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So last night my internet went out. Problems along the line somewhere, ISP level stuff. It's fixed now.

To pass time while the ISP fixed the line, I decided to play a game. Steam was running when the connection went down, so I tried to launch a game. Naturally, it crashed trying to prove I'm not a thief.

Ending Steam.exe, I proceded to try again. I launched the program, it tried to update then it asked me to Retry, Start in Offline Mode or Exit. I clicked Offline Mode. Clearly, someone didn't get the memo that said that "Offline" means "Without an internet connection", because Steam told me it couldn't start in Offline Mode because it couldn't connect to the Steam network.

what

Offline = Offline = Offline = No live internet connection. If I'm not connected to the internet, I can't connect to the Steam network. All I wanted to do was launch San Andreas and kill virtual hookers, and you weren't letting me do it.

Here's how it should work:
Offline Mode starts with Community features hidden (IE: friends window ghosted out etc)
Downloads suspended (not stopped, suspended, internet connections can go down when you're downloading)
Launching the game...works.

If you must check on us to make sure we're not pirates, store launch attempts and send them off when online mode starts. Sure, it wastes our bandwidth, but just so you know we're not taking your money, must be worth it.

Also, don't ignore this like you did before the beta became "gold". A lot of people can't get 24/7 connections (SHOCKING, ISN'T IT?!)

Cannot activate Steam in Offline Mode

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1283710

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Whenever I try to activate a game, or even just the client itself, in an area where I have no internet access, it tries to update. This goes on for about 2 or 3 minutes, then it proceeds to ask me if I wish to retry the connection, activate in offline mode or quit.

If I click 'Activate Offline Mode' or 'Quit', both options give the same result. First I get a window that says something along the lines of 'Internet could not be connected, check your settings, blah blah blah' and then right beneath it is another window that says 'Requested activity could not be activated in offline mode' or something to that effect.

If I click OK on the first pop up, the second one closes a split second after.

I've accessed the internet and when I log onto steam, I'm told I have the most up to date version.

I'm not sure what's wrong.

Offline Mode broken: Exits with unable to connect to steam

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1268469

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Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit
Intel® Core™ i5-750
XFX Radeon HD5770 XXX 1GB
25Mbit Internet connection
http://steamcommunity.com/id/166_MMX/

I set the windows firewall to block all incoming and outgoing connections to force Steam into Offline mode.

I then selected Start in offline mode. Right after that i got a error message that steam was unable to connect to Steam and steam quit.

There were some downloads pending in Steam at the time I tried to start Steam in Offline mode.

Steam though starts in Offline mode when there are no downloads pending. Basically this means don't loose your network connection while you are updating games otherwise you wont be able to start Steam in offline mode and would be at least be able to access the games that are not affected by the pedning update / download.

Start Steam Client without updating?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031902

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I often use a computer with no internet access. I can play my Steam games in Offline Mode most of the time, but when Steam has an update, offline mode won't start.

Is there a command line parameter ( -noupdate?) to start Steam without updating the client? It's frustrating to randomly be blocked out of offline mode -- especially lately when there are a few updates per week.

Thanks

PieceOfMind · May 28, 2010

The fact that all four of those threads have been left without an official response raises my suspicions that Valve have a reason for this "problem" and that is why they aren't fixing it. Therefore it is simply a downside to Steam. It's not a bug - it's a flaw. If a game is updating when your internet connection drops, then you can not go into offline mode and your games might not work. That is exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago when my internet dropped out at the ISP. Because I couldn't talk to Steam servers the Steam client could not switch to offline mode.
Steam is not always a good experience for someone with a less than 100% reliable internet connection. :thumbsdown:

White Elk · May 28, 2010

Another issue relating to offline mode is that you can't play it while there are pending game updates/patches. Some players with many games are experiancing a daily need to update their games. Some say as much as 30 minutes have to be set aside for downloading various patches before they can even play a game. And if your net connection should fail during that time, you can't play your games until such time as you can reconnect and complete all the downloads. Yet even when you get a solid net connection back, you may not be able to complete the downloads. All across the Steam forums people are reporting that updates won't install once interupted. Some users experiance this due to dropped net connections, others get it due to sleep mode activation, still others have it occur for a variety of other reasons. Users have to unistall/reinstall Steam, delete blob files, edit their registery, jump through this hoop and over that obstacle to get their games to play. And users who jump through the hoops to be able to play in offline mode are finding that the "Do Not Auto-Update" feature isn't working. Not cool.

The following quotes represent just a small fraction of the postings I found for each of these problems.
It would take me days to post all that I have found in just the three weeks since I've begun checking.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14923927&postcount=7

Same issue.

I have around 80+ games on steam, and almost every day there is an update for at least 1 or 2 of them. This is really really frustrating, as it takes me 20 - 30 minutes before I can actually launch a game that I own.

FIX IT BUMP!

"Do not automatically update this game" WILL NOT STICK

Spoiler :

Game auto updates even after I set to not to

Spoiler :

Please Fix Auto Update Settings

Spoiler :

UI unresponsive in low bandwidth conditions when downloading

Spoiler :

Steam hangs if connection to content servers lost.

Spoiler :

Steam Client Update Stuck

Spoiler :

Steam - update stuck at 26%

Spoiler :

And heres a post by a fellow Civer who says he downloaded Steam in preperation for Civ5.
This wasn't the only thread about that specific problem... by far!
I post this one since it relates to our community...

Unable to play any games since upgrade.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1275260

Hello All,
Sorry to say that my first post to these forums is to report a problem.

I downloaded Steam on the 9th of May and bought and downloaded CivIV complete on the same day: I have played those games without any problems until the recent update... Since the update I have been unable to play any games whatsoever!!!!

From Monday (17th of May, when the update was installed); when I attempt to play any of my installed games nothing happens...

When I click on any "shortcuts" (installed by Steam on my Desktop) or starting Steam and try to run the games from my "Library" of games from the Steam interface or trying to run the games from the .exe application files from my C: drive directly.... Nothing happens....

A "pop-up" appears (from Steam) stating "Preparing to launch XXXXXXXX" (name of the game) after that nothing....

I have tried following the steps in the troubleshooting guide, but nothing works.

I only download Steam because, CivV may require it, but if this is an indication of how Stream works............
After less that 10 days of use...... ITS BROKEN..........

System:-
Windows 7 Home Permimum 64-bit

The_Coyote · May 28, 2010

fishmonger said:
Registering takes very little time, and is of no cost to you. How is that a negative?personal experience.

needed steps (no judgmental of any of this points intended):
install steam
read / accept the subscriber agreement
read / accept the privacy policy
provide needed data for the account

additional / optional points:
collect additional information
(too lazy too invest more work in this point)

And now you will be shocked, did you see that there was only a "x". I haven´t said how big the figure itself is. But even the smallest amount of negative use will be translated in a negative monetary value "z" (of course depending on your individual utility function). So it´s like giving a gift (something of monetary value "z") to Valve, why should i?

And believe me, you would be much more shocked if you would knew my personal monetary value "z" of a registration.

Of course there is no problem if the (expected / anticipated / guessed) positive use of a registration outperforms the negative use of the need to registration. But ask yourself, how often did you see a registration option in the net, and often did you register, and why you did not registered always you had option to do. [btw, i can imagine that there are persons around who actual see a positive use in a registration and register every time they can - but at least i´m not a member of this group]

fishmonger said:
But you can't make a fair assessment on how steam handles these things without any personal experience.

Do you remember: "some examples i´m aware" - i thought there is still a difference between share and aware [but as non native speaker i´m not that sure]. As long as the discussion will go on like now (the general style), i´m not willing to share any of my personal reasons here (but you can believe me, all of them require no active steam usage experience)

Sterf · May 28, 2010

Your personal monetary value of 'x', registering steam? You giving the monetary value of this imaginary 'x' to Valve? Try calculating how much monetary value (x) you give to your toilet every day. Damn those companies that produce toilets!
If you value your precious seconds so, why the hell are you even playing games? Stop it before the economy crumbles! Or even better, stop arguing pointless things and save that precious time for registering steam once.
These threads are getting crazier with the minute.

White Elk · May 28, 2010

Chalks said:
I've used steam for 4 years, never had any problems.

There are 25 million people using steam and a comparative handful of people suffering a few minutes or hours delay once or twice in their entire lives.

You can rant about the potential issues with any technology. You'd have every right to be annoyed if there were loads of issues with it, but since it's not happened yet you're trying to justify being annoyed about the potential for issues, even when it's extremely unlikely.

You report inaccuratly what I find on the Steam forums. We are talking days and weeks and even months of not being able to play purchased games. We are talking uninstalls, reinstalls, redownloading, deleting and restoring files, restarting the client and the OS, making registry edits, adjusting firewall settings, turning off AV programs, resetting routers, following troubleshooting suggestions, searching the knowledge base and forums for help, emailing Steam for help, waiting for said help, being frustrated at the lack of help and posting on the forums for user help. Then finally getting it to run only to encounter another problem at the next client update. It is quite common enough to comment on.

You can read the long lists of things people do in an attempt to get their games running on Steam. None of it sounds fun. And the frequency for which people post about it, and post affirmation of having the same problems, gives me the very strong sense that this is all more common than you personally would like to believe. And know that far more people read and search the forums for answers than post about it. And know that of those 25 million users you talk about, only a tad more than 323,000 are registered at the forums.

I have what I see to be valid concerns. I post about them here to discuss this with a community of fanatical fans I have a history with. I don't understand your purpose here. You spend a startingly amount of time and postings rudely telling those of us with concerns that we are paranoid, and otherwise foolish. I don't get your purpose here. The content and attitude of your postings serve little constructive purpose. They contain no helpful facts and data. Just attacks on users and statements that since you've had no problems with Steam, that there is no problem with it. Who the hell do you think you are huh? Whats your motivation here?

Your continued support of Steam has grown to mean nothing to me. I can see for myself that a sizable portion of the Steam community has the sorts of problems I would seek to avoid. Yet there is you who attempt to discredit everyones concerns and say that none of it is so. I must say that your dedication to this topic, along with your methodolgy is quite queer. And I'm not saying that I don't value the opinions of members that are new to these forums, but in your case, with your history, actions, and attitude, I do question why the hell you are here???

Civ 5/Steam:Offline Mode Question

Say yes to Steam

Lady Day

The 4th X

Deity

Chieftain

Drill IV Defender

Drill IV Defender

Chieftain

Chieftain

Deity

Drill IV Defender

Say No 2 Net Validations

Warlord

Prince

99 > 1

Drill IV Defender

99 > 1

Emperor

Warlord

99 > 1

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