moho25

@sesom : Ah, ok. That makes sense. Taking a look at the Steam Support page, doesn't look like I'll have any problems saving Steam to another location, but Skyrim does need to be saved in the Steam Apps folder, grrr. At least they both can reside on the partition that I want. One final question: Will Steam screw with any games that are already installed?

Let me clarify how I have my computer set up, and that might help in answering my question. I have 3 HDDs: 1. 2 partitions. Win7 & Programs (including all of my games) 2. 2 partitions: Win7 swap/temp directories & Linux (the latter, once I get more time) 3. 1 partition: all data, including MS default libraries that I never use (My Docs, My Music, etc). Note that the <User\AppData> Folder is still on the C drive. I haven't had any problems modding Oblivion with this file structure, but would I with Steam? Or, as long as I install Steam + Skyrim to the directory of my choosing, I shouldn't have any problems? A bit difficult to verbalize. Hope that helps! Thanks again to everyone.

Flame wars aren't needed, folks. Please stay on topic. Remember Bambi? Remember what Thumper's mother said? Why is it that nobody seems to have a filter these days? Anyway... 1. Ok, so, no playing Skyrim without Steam running. Damn. What sorts of information is it collecting and sending? Can it collect and send anything if it's blocked by Windows Firewall? Shouldn't seem so... 2. Save Locations. From people's examples, it looks like the actual saved game is better to have on the C: drive. Does the game itself also need to be installed there? If so, that's the type of crap that really irks me. Not only do I have to use a secondary program to play the game, but I can't even have my computer organized the way that I want, and have the game work appropriately? Or, is it mostly an issue with mods?

Many of you have given me some great information. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to comment. Here's a couple more questions/confirmations for some of you: 1. So I don't even have to run Steam in order to launch the game, correct? I can put a shortcut onto my desktop or wherever and start the game from it's own .exe file? This is definitely what I want to hear. I'd prefer to not have it running at all when I play the game. 2. Game install/save locations. I have my computer set up to save programs/data in various locations. I don't want to have to modify that just to run Steam -- they are exactly where I want them. Is this a problem? Does the game or game saves have to be in a particular file location? 3. Keeping it firewalled. Great advice. 4. Ads. Thanks for the heads up on this. 5. Here's a question: Could I uninstall Steam once I activate the game? I mean, I wouldn't actually go this route as it would screw me for future patches, requiring me to re-download it to have access to them, which would then succeed in mucking up my system even more, but ...this would be possible, right? Again, thanks for everyone's input!. I'm open to the option of liking Steam...but I'm just not counting on it :/

Appreciate the information. To clarify, I haven't played New Vegas, or any other game that has required Steam. I can count the number of computer games I have played on one hand, lol (Torchlight, Trine, WoW, Oblivion, and Mass Effect 2).

I'm a relatively casual gamer. I picked up Oblivion a little over a year ago and loved it, modded it, had a ton of fun with it, and have been counting the days for Skyrim's release, looking forward to how much better the graphics will be, and hoping that Bethesda corrected the mistakes in Skyrim that they made to Oblivion. I excitedly pre-ordered my copy from GameStop last week. As I've started to read up on what info is available for the game (avoiding spoilers), I'm finding some scattered info about Steam and "Steamworks". Amazingly enough, I can't seem to find anything about this on he official Skyrim site, but, am I correct in deriving that Skyrim is going to actually require Steam? In other words, I won't be able to bring the game home and install it on my computer without also having to install Steam, which I don't use for anything else, and which won't do anything but clutter up my hard drive and registry? I'm aware you can play in some sort of offline mode, but does this client/program need to run whenever I play the game? The whole reason that I buy hard copies of games is to avoid this entire situation. It's a single player game. If I even concede to the necessity of DRM, I shouldn't ever need the internet except for a simple, quick online activation. Wth? Sigh. I'm so blazing ticked/disappointed about this right now, that I'm seriously considering canceling my pre-order. This is the same BS as Apple trying to shove a software service down your throat just to use their piece of hardware (which, admittedly, imo is pretty awesome). My intention is to not turn this thread into a pro/con Steam thread. I don't know anything about Steam short of the fact that I don't appreciate being required to use a secondary service to play a game that I just bought. So, no trolls or fanboys, please. However, I would like to like to hear from some folks that aren't huge fans of Steam and that tolerate it anyway. Here are some questions: 1. I just bought a brand new gaming/work laptop and am trying very hard to keep it as uncluttered as possible. Having to deal with Steam was not in my plan. What are the common problems that you have had and that I might experience? 2. How invasive is it on your system -- like iTunes10Kregistryentries invasive? 3. How much does it slow down your machine? RAM usage? 4. Does wired/wireless network make a difference? 5. Does it need to authenticate every time you start up the game? Or... 6. Can I actually play with the service never running, once I activate the game for the first time (short of downloading a patch, etc)? 7. I will likely mod the game and have read about previous problems. Do people expect this to happen again? 8. If Steam's service goes down, does that mean I won't be able to play the game, even though I bought my own physical copy? 9. Are there any other important pieces of info that I might want to take into consideration? 10. Besides a console version, do I have any other options? I appreciate any feedback. Thanks much.