Steam Offline Mode

[Charybdis]

Looking for a bit of help as hopefully someone has some experience with this.

Last couple of days I've had some net outages in my area due to fans blowing up in the exchange (yay summer), so I went to play some civ5 to pass the time.

I went to steam and set it to offline mode, then tried to run civ, but no dice. Steam seized and I had to try to restart it, but everytime I did it would alert that it was running in offline mode, then fail to load due to an inability to connect to the net.

When I rebooted my PC same issue.

Now am I missing a step somewhere so that if my net does go down I can continue to play civ5, or am I just plain getting screwed?

 

[Fariic]

Redownload steam.
The game should run just fine with steam in offline. If steam freezes when you try then it sounds like something wrong with your copy of steam.

You could also check that you have steam updated. Valve releases updates to steam on a pretty regular basis.

 

[mattavich]

this happened to me recently.

From what i know, you need to select "offline" before going offline to make it work :/

 

[cman2010]

this happened to me recently.

From what i know, you need to select "offline" before going offline to make it work :/

this should fix the problem.

 

[Selous]

this happened to me recently.

From what i know, you need to select "offline" before going offline to make it work :/

correct and confirmed ... sometimes u will get lucky if u are cut off, but basically u need to be able to get online to set it up for offline (10 sec and u are done ... )

 

[duckmanbro]

Having just moved to a new house, I am having similar issues, as I have yet to connect any type of internet service.

What happens to me is if Steam cannot detect a network connection, it will ask you to launch in "Offline Mode", after about a few minutes or so. I didn't try to launch Steam as it seemed to freak out a little...

 

[Selous]

nothing terrible will happen if you try to launch steam, but there is a chance u cant play till u get some net (at least to set steam up in offline mode)

another way to play your games (last time i tried this it worked fine) is to launch your game from the directory ... goto program files/steam/steamapps/common/game you want to play

something to keep in mind before you go traveling and may not have net, to put steam into offline mode

 

[Maniacal]

You don't need to put Steam into offline mode first while you still have internet, you just need to go into settings and tell ti to remember your log in stuff and then once it finishes checking for (and failing to find) a connection click launch in offline mode and viola, there are your games.

 

[Selous]

You don't need to put Steam into offline mode first while you still have internet, you just need to go into settings and tell ti to remember your log in stuff and then once it finishes checking for (and failing to find) a connection click launch in offline mode and viola, there are your games.

this does not always work ... i travel around with work and get caught out without net far to often, have been caught out without being able to play any of my games for weeks on end

 

[Anthropoid]

Does not sound very convenient or predictable. Part of why I refuse to patronize Steam.

 

[cman2010]

This is why so many people dislike steam, I personaly have not run into any problems but I hear alot of complaints about steam in general.

 

[Selous]

Does not sound very convenient or predictable. Part of why I refuse to patronize Steam.

i applaud your stand! i am making one myself in regard to ubisoft drm, the extra services that steam (and to a lesser extent "impulse") provide, are a good tradeoff to run their software ... imo off course

 

[Samuil]

I was out of internet last week for a few days, I managed to play in offline mode with no problem

 

[Anthropoid]

i applaud your stand! i am making one myself in regard to ubisoft drm, the extra services that steam (and to a lesser extent "impulse") provide, are a good tradeoff to run their software ... imo off course

It is not like it heroic or something. There are plenty of games to play that do not require Steam. Indeed, there are distributors that seem to offer most of the main consumer advantages without the intrusive inconvenience. Gamersgate for example. When I run out of Steamless options and am feeling an unscratchable itch, I might then consider buying a Steam (or other DRM game). But until then, my reservations about their services and business practices win out and I do not buy their games, including ones that I would have otherwise happily have bought (Fallout NV; Civ5). Yes, despite Civ's rocky launch, I still would've bought it simply as an act of support to the series. Making it Steam only was the straw.

 

[code9]

From what i know, you need to select "offline" before going offline to make it work :/

I was also unable to get steam to work in offline mode, but i didn't try connecting, then choosing offline, then disconnecting. Thanks for the tip, i will try it out.

 

[Senethro]

If you're expecting to suddenly play offline then the most important thing is that you tick the box that saves your user/pass so you login automatically. It saves fiddling at the start of play and also coincidentally readies you for offline mode without needing to go online.

 

[Truthy]

Go into "offline mode".