Game knows of a patch even when offline?

[blasto]

What I wanna know is how the game knows an update is needed when I play exclusively offline. As soon as a patch comes out, the game will say something along the lines of "game not ready to be played in offline mode". Once I update it, then it plays again and I can go offline.

THis almost reeks of predetermined patch date/intervals...

Does anyone know for sure what's up with this?

 

[joncnunn]

Dead man trigger code?

(If your online, it gets a small patch that does nothing except for moving the date forward)

 

[The_J]

No, it's really so that Steam communicates with its servers even in offline mode. It has been discussed prerelease, the offline mode doesn't mean that Steam is offline, only that you don't need to be online to play your game (sounds dull...and yes, imho also doesn't only sound so).

 

[blasto]

No, it's really so that Steam communicates with its servers even in offline mode. It has been discussed prerelease, the offline mode doesn't mean that Steam is offline, only that you don't need to be online to play your game (sounds dull...and yes, imho also doesn't only sound so).

I forgot to mention that when I play offline, I'm really offline. I toggle my NIC on/off when needed, keeping disconnected all the time except when I have something to do online. THen I immediately disconnect when I'm done.

So it can't be that either. Unless when I go online for a different game... that must be it.

 

[FeiLing]

Being online for one second while steam is running is enough really to have it check on the versions.