Skyrim and Steam...

[Handofbane]

Or he could check other possibilities to make certain his assumption is correct instead of jumping to conclusions. But by all means, pissing and moaning that it's the devil Steam at work destroying everyone's game will accomplish far more than trying to isolate the problem and then help point him toward a possible solution. After all, if 40-80k people can manage to successfully log into the game (and by extension Steam servers) while he was having issues, it must obviously be something on Steam's end - rather than somewhere else along the chain between his keyboard and them. Using the same logic you apply there, anytime my internet goes out, it must be Mozilla's fault because Firefox gives me the "cannot connect" message, rather than my cable company or modem or the line in between.

[HornedOni]

First of all, let me say that I dislike DRM in most of it's forms, and that I'm not a particular friend of Steam itself, either.

 

As for why I deal with it anyway?

 

I do have a few reasons there.

 

1. The gifting mechanic.

 

Over here (Germany) many games are released brutally censored. While Steam jumps through hoops to make sure you get those versions when buying locally, it is trivial to send money to an American, then have them gift you the game. That way, I get easy, overnight access to uncensored games, without having to go through the process of importing them from overseas, incurring import tax, ridiculous shipping fees and all that other nonsense. And then having to wait two or three weeks for said game to actually make it's way here.

 

Since said American also gets the game for dollar prices, rather than the ridiculously inflated prices over here, I also save ~30% over German retail. Combined with the cheap sales happening sometimes, holiday events, whatever, I save even more, or even get some games entirely free. Didn't pay a cent for several of my games (DMC3, Darksiders).

 

2. 'Disc Backup'

 

A few people mentioned this. In one case it saved my butt. X3:TC, bought in retail, registered the game on their forums back then. Disc lost when moving. Got one of the devs to send me the Key (since I had registered it...), put it into steam, downloaded the game, copied the steam folder elsewhere, installed most recent non-steam patch over it (dev sanctioned procedure), BAM, steam-DRM free X3.

 

Though this is more Egosoft being awesome rather than Steam being decent, here.

 

For games you buy retail and keep in your shelf, this is a reduncancy measure, anyway. Nothing stops you from activating a game on steam, then using your steam-drm free disc version anyway. Until your dog decides chewing on the game disc is a good idea, anyway.

 

3. Steam does have some smart features.

 

Multiboot environment? Several computers? Reinstalling windows often? Worry not, launch steam once, even copy it, games included, whereever, it sets up the necessary registry keys on it's own, all games work. No redownloading. No reinstalling.

 

 

 

And since German consumer protection laws work for me, most of the EULA nonsense is rendered ineffective anyway and most likely wouldn't stand up in court. Ha. (One example, all EULAs that you cannot read before purchase ("EULA enclosed inside this box") are rendered completely ineffective.)

 

 

Either way, this doesn't excuse the ridiculous stuff involving the EULAs of Steam and the Workshop. But it's still a lesser evil compared to the likes of origin (lol), and the advantages are in some cases plenty for me to make the decision to grit my teeth and bear with it.

 

 

Making the PC Skyrim a Steam-exclusive is Bethesda's fault, anyway. Not Valve's.

Edited December 24, 2011 by HornedOni

[DrunkPirateRobert]

@DrunkPirateRobert - have you checked your network settings lately? Had any issues with your internet connection at all? Because Steam was definitely not down for that time period, neither did it prevent myself or many others from being able to play Skyrim at that time (and I am not just pulling numbers from my nethers, Steam has the "how many people are playing what" tracker built into the Community tab, typically 40-50,000, with a peak of just under 80,000 at one time). The problem is likely on your end, not theirs.

 

not particularly my place, but i have to ask a question, and make a statement.

Q. are you sure you don't work for valve?

because~>

S. You fail to see that it doesn't matter who's fault it was that he couldn't play a game he paid money for, the fact that he couldn't is what's important.

if skyrim never had steam>he could have played

if pirated>he could play

with steam>could not play

doesn't matter if it's his connection, his isp's connection, steams servers/connection, or a monkey swinging from transmission lines screwing up the connection.

he could not play because of steam. steam is what's at fault, nothing else. because no steam he would have never had that problem.

 

Exactly.

 

Steam isn't giving me any "service" I want at all. It is instead a barrier to me playing when I want to do so.

Edited December 24, 2011 by DrunkPirateRobert

[DrunkPirateRobert]

@DrunkPirateRobert - have you checked your network settings lately? Had any issues with your internet connection at all? Because Steam was definitely not down for that time period, neither did it prevent myself or many others from being able to play Skyrim at that time (and I am not just pulling numbers from my nethers, Steam has the "how many people are playing what" tracker built into the Community tab, typically 40-50,000, with a peak of just under 80,000 at one time). The problem is likely on your end, not theirs.

 

I was on the internet -- OBVIOUSLY -- when I made the posts about not being able to play Skyrim yesterday. My internet connection therefore was obviously working.

 

It is entirely possible that there is some change I could make in my computer settings on my end which would prevent this problem from happening again. But I am not a computer tech. I have no idea where such a problem might lie or how to correct it. When I purchase a computer game, it is for leisure time fun. It is not something I think I should have to be a friggin computer tech for in order to play a damned game.

 

Bottom line, as was pointed out by another poster above, is that this problem would not be happening at all if not for Steam's "service" of inserting itself between me and playing my own game. I don't want this so-called "service." I want to just slip in a disc and play the game. Easy, simple, with no damned "Steam-- Error. The game is currently unavailable. Please try again at another time" nonsense.

Edited December 24, 2011 by DrunkPirateRobert

[Zemeckis1234]

Steam is as annoying as trying to play heroes of might and magic VI offline.The fact that so many game are making you to have to stay online to get the full benifits is a joke. Edited December 24, 2011 by Zemeckis1234

[olafreinhardweyer]

As Moriarty from Fallout 3 would say it: FOOK steam. That's right fook it!!!

I just unistalled to see if the latest download would finally get my update

this screwed up, spying OS (because that's what it is, an OS) can't get

itself through updating.

 

Well you know what happens. My games are gone! My whole common

folder with all darn steam games are unistalled as well. Not only did

steam destroy hours and hours of work finding he right mix of individual

textures from different mods (a tree here, a roof from there) it also

destroyed my very OWN music creations i worked on since November!

 

I had it with this monster.

 

Steam is illegal on so many levels, i had it. Lets become a

force. Lets bring them down!!!!!!!!!!

Edited February 6, 2012 by olafreinhardweyer

[WOTmodsproductions]

You think its bad now, wait until steam start restricting our use in movies and music.

 

The future of steam:

 

'Please log into steam to purchase your oxygen'

 

Sorry steam cannot connect, please try again later....'

 

Oh crap........

Edited February 7, 2012 by thelonewarrior

[rabidNode]

no doubt jackal is employed by steam or just very ignorant to the long term ramifications to the free flow of modding with the inclusion of a monitoring system as well as an only online system

 

not sure there is anything good about Steam for us over time.

however it is a brilliant business model

buy and sell ads and demographics and do nothing but store data and collect a lot of money

 

and the legal sh** that will ensue once they fully own the ck and mods...

not at first but ownership of source code is something that Steam would do.

so too would they if they found out it would work lease the ck and the "privilege" to mod

 

it is however a sign o the times and even more so when anyone backs it up at all since the consumer loses this game regardless so...

[AxlRocks]

...

 

This is a bit off topic, but I couldn't PM you about it, it wouldn't let me (Inbox full?) but anyway, you might be able to salvage some or maybe all of your custom music if it's not been overwritten yet. Try out Recuva, it's made by Piriform, same folks who make CCleaner which you may know and if not I highly recommend as well. Anyway, Recuva will recover any files you've deleted but haven't been overwritten yet, which if you JUST uninstalled, the chances are much better for your music having not been overwrote. Check it out here, I hope it helps: Recuva

 

As for staying on topic, yeah it sucks Skyrim AND the CK are Steam bound, as with any game but unfortunately everything is going to Steam. It's like a punishment honestly, nothing angers me more than hitting play, waiting for 5 minutes like usual (which is ridiculous enough), then it telling me the game is unavailable. Sure, I can go into offline mode and using SKSE cures the wait time (which I find highly interesting, what exactly is Steam doing otherwise? That's unacceptable.), but I really shouldn't have to. I'll agree with the other side in saying that going "offline" ISN'T that big of a deal, but it's simply the point of it. We paid for our copies of the game, why do we have to jump any hoop to play it? If Valve actually got on the ball and listened to us, I actually think Steam could be a good program for us and developers alike. The problem is too many people "just take it" as is and Valve just doesn't care. I think Bethesda does care, but they can only do so much too. They're why we had an uncencrypted exe to begin it, Steam is why we have what we have now, like every other Steam game. Actually, if Valve had their way, I seriously would not be surprised if the CK saved ONLY to the Workshop.

Edited February 7, 2012 by AxlRocks

[DZMaven]

As Moriarty from Fallout 3 would say it: FOOK steam. That's right fook it!!!

I just unistalled to see if the latest download would finally get my update

this screwed up, spying OS (because that's what it is, an OS) can't get

itself through updating.

 

Well you know what happens. My games are gone! My whole common

folder with all darn steam games are unistalled as well. Not only did

steam destroy hours and hours of work finding he right mix of individual

textures from different mods (a tree here, a roof from there) it also

destroyed my very OWN music creations i worked on since November!

 

I had it with this monster.

 

Steam is illegal on so many levels, i had it. Lets become a

force. Lets bring them down!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh for pete's sake. Did you even bother to research what would happen before you clicked the UNINSTALL STEAM button? Let me guess, NO.

I googled for it found out real quick exactly what happens and guess what? Steam suggests you move your steamapps before uninstalling.

Yes it deletes the entire Steam folder. Don't act all surprised with fake outrage. You have should have researched that before committing to such a major software change.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9609-OBMP-2526

 

You brought it on yourself. Hope you have a Windows restore point, but even that may not work at recovering all your games and content.

Sorry, but you can't blame Steam for that one. That was all you.