Steam is annoying! Any way around it?

[Shadeybladey]

 

I agree with your statements about Steam; I wouldn't put up with it for anything other than Skyrim. That said, I launch with SKSE, set Steam to offline, get the regular launch screen and exit. I then relaunch with SKSE and Skyrim starts right away. It's a small pain, but I don't disconnect from the internet and I've never had my load order changed. Am I misunderstanding?

 

 

If I use the SKSE launcher to start Steam, the vanilla splash panel comes up and re-writes my load order. Mainly, it puts some esms at the end of DLCList, loadorder and plugins.txt. This is more than a little irritating as I am very careful with my load order, keep a copy in Excel. I have a Bash patch, a dual sheath redux patch, several TES5Edit merged patches to make my unreleased mods compatible with some others, about eight of my own mods (three unreleased) and about six unreleased mods from a friend that we share by e-mail in our Friends group. Sometimes, it re-detects my graphics settings and rewrites my ini files as well. There is also the problem that it can download settings stored in the Cloud and undo your tweaks. You don't need any of that Cloud Synch unless you play the same saves on different machines, which I don't.

 

SKSE is an alternative Skyrim launcher - it is not meant to be an alternative Steam launcher as well. But if you do not get the same problems as me, that's great. But I always say "Better safe than sorry". You do not need to be disconnected these days to run Steam in off-line mode.

 

 

The thing about not being connected to the net, in the early days (March 2012, when I first installed Steam and Skyrim) with patch 1.4/1.5 they did not have an effective off-line mode. So I never launched Steam while connected because I never knew when I was going to get a stealth patch that would break my mods. So I'd wait until people had posted their problems and which mods still worked. It was a regular event at SPUF - massive threads on patch 1.6, patch 1.7, patch 1.8 and patch 1.9, plus all the intermediate updates, plus beta-testers complaining what they had reported to Beth which had got ignored.

 

And, of course, SKSE would not work until it was updated for the latest patch, so you could not play for a day or two anyway. This was a deliberate, built-in safety feature, but I think it was the source of The Ignorant thinking SKSE was a dangerous thing to have.

 

So it became a habit that I would wait until the final patch update for Skyrim was out and fully tested by many people. In those days, I had only 30 mods for my "Vanilla Deluxe" version as I loved my first character and did not want her wrecked, She lasted nearly 500 hours and got to level 65 and survived four or five major patches. I now have about 200 mods.

 

But also, back then, I had to use a special script hack from the SPUF forum, otherwise Steam would launch automatically and try to connect to the web when the machine booted up! :wallbash: :wacko: :verymad:

 

Luckily, I only had a mobile dongle, no proper, "always-on" broadband. So when my PC booted up, Steam could NOT hijack my system and automatically connect to the web and download it's virus to wreck my game.

 

But what I find now is that I can:

 

launch Steam in off-line mode,

Run the SKSE launcher

Play.

 

 

That's the way it should have always been.

 

Well, the way it should have been is a 24-digit, 32-bit encrypted activation key, the entire fully patched game and DLC on the Legendary DVD, and maybe logging on to Steam once to activate the game. No 5 GB downloads even though you have the disk. Same for the original release - log in to get patches if you want them.

 

All this DRM stuff just makes it difficult for the legitimate, paying customer. Long John Silver will always find a way round it. Just look at the number of people banned for it. OOO-ARRGGH, Jim Laaaad!! :pirate:

 

~.~

[Elfriend]

No disagreement from me, Sir, thanks for the reply. I got into Skyrim a little later than you (June, 2012) so I missed some of the worst of Steaminess. I was also careful to stay offline until each patch was sorted. The worst Steam does to me now if I go online is to reload some old saves that it somehow accumulated. Still, it's a sorry way to do business.

[GodKingVivec]

I go to a friends house and use their Internet, I also find that if you rapidly click on the skse icon it will open skyrim despite steam being logged out. But only with an up to date version. I miss when the worst you had to do was call a hotline, or keep a paper with a code on it. And yes i set it to offline mode before i disconnected again. But sure enough it logged itself out. How do you make it remember your registry information?

[Shadeybladey]

I go to a friends house and use their Internet, I also find that if you rapidly click on the skse icon it will open skyrim despite steam being logged out. But only with an up to date version. I miss when the worst you had to do was call a hotline, or keep a paper with a code on it. And yes i set it to offline mode before i disconnected again. But sure enough it logged itself out. How do you make it remember your registry information?

 

You'll have to put in a ticket to Steam Support.

 

Steam knows which machine you are using to access the game, so I think that perhaps when you set it to off-line mode on your friend's machine, the local data for your account will be saved on that PC, including off-line mode.

 

I don't know how those settings would get onto your PC if you never connect with it. :wacko:

 

The point of the cloud is so that you can play your saves on different PCs, but that requires saving the games in the cloud, and for that you need reliable internet connection on all the PCs you use. The cloud sort of works like a server for your saved games.

 

I am not much of an expert on it as I never use it. I disable auto updates, cloud synch etc and have played Skyrim off-line since I first installed the game. It sometimes has made me log in after an update to the Steam client and disrupted my local settings, logged me out of friends groups and subscribed threads etc. But Steam Support advised that I should not close down the machine while Steam is running as it can get corrupted. So I always close down Stream before I shut down the PC.

 

The simplest thing would be to get something like a 3G mobile dongle so you can update your Steam client on your own PC. I bought one when I got my new PC in March 2012, just so I could install Steam and Skyrim. As long as your area has decent cell phone coverage, it works well enough. It costs me £25 for 7.5 GB.

 

But if your home PC has no internet connection, how did you ever install Steam and Skyrim in the first place?

 

And how would the local settings on your friend's machine get on to your home machine?

 

 

I cannot advise you on registry hacks as:

 

1. I don't know how to do it

2. I think it is against the forum rules and could be regarded as supporting piracy

 

 

As I say, get a mobile dongle and update Steam on your own PC and you should have no further problems.

 

~.~

[Lord Garon]

Ahhh, Steam. Just got done "fixing" a Steam "repair" on one of my test setups. Left Skyrim pointing to the modded directory and dbl-clicked the launcher without thinking; Steam re-verified my install cause it has "missing" and modified bsa files. (Yeah, it will do that even in offline mode if it finds a "change" it doesn't like.) The big changes aren't a problem, but it verifies everything once it starts; my latest test ini files were wiped out!

 

If Steam were just a DRM utility, I wouldn't mind so much. But its really a marketing and advertising tool for Valve. I don't know how the largest digital distribution platform gets away with so much malware bloat in its "DRM" software. No one else gets cut as much slack as Valve and that constantly amazes me. But, that's what happens with a monopoly; they can do whatever they want and customers have no choice but to submit. In my humble opinion, of course.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Lord Garon

[GodKingVivec]

No no no. I take MY machine, and connect to thier internet.I take my desktop over to her house and sign in that way.

[GodKingVivec]

We need to rise up against the machine! And collectivley in form them that it would be in thier best interests to fornicate themselves in a half-inversed manner.

[Shadeybladey]

No no no. I take MY machine, and connect to thier internet.I take my desktop over to her house and sign in that way.

 

Ah, it would have been clearer if you said that at the outset.

 

But if you get a mobile "pay-as-you-go" dongle, you would not have to do that. You would also have the time to set Steam up so that you can have permanent off-line mode. It works for me.

 

~

[NemesisTheWarlock]

I have always used off-line mode for Steam as I want nothing to do with it. Skyrim is the only Steam game I have. Just remember to launch Steam in off-line mode first and then use the SKSE launcher.

Just a word of warning about this. I am the same, I hate Steam with a passion and only use it for Skyrim, but if you refuse to go online, as I do, Steam will consider this "suspicious" and, as they did to me, may remove your game from you. You will then have to PROVE to them that you own a legitimate copy of the game and they will eventually, grudgingly, re-issue your game. Be warned though, it took me about a month to get my game back and it killed my browser in the process, Steam is, in essence, a virus after all.

I also discovered in the process, that Bethesda have no say in the matter. I'd contacted Bethesda support, given that they are actually helpful and care about their customers. They contacted Valve on my behalf and were told in no uncertain terms where they could stick it!

[sralkyrv]

I hate Steam too, a few years back you bought a game, installed it on your computer and you were ready to play, it was just a matter of a few minutes.

These days with Steam it can take hours to install the game simply because you have to download it, not to mention when you need to re-install the game, you can start all over again with that annoying installation process.

I bought skyrim, so it is a legal copy, but i would ratter get rid of Steam if it were possible, i would make my own descisions weither i play online or offline (even without an internet connection at all).

Although we hate Steam we also have to blame Bethesda because they agreed to work together with Steam, like Rockstar games does with windows live.