New to Skyrim/Steam. Need sage advice.

[catsbane]

Greetings all. I've recently been given a copy of Skyrim Legendary for Steam. Have installed and played a bit. I've played/modded Oblivion for years but the whole Steam thing is foreign to me.

 

I've read that one could install the Steam version just for single PC and not have to get online to play. However looking on disk after install, I see nothing at all that looks like Skyrim related data.... just Steam. Is my Skyrim just floating out there in the aether at Steam? If so is there no way to install mods directly to PC? Also is there no way to mod other than through the Steam workshop system?

 

If I do have to "subscribe" to mods on Steam in order to use/install. Is there a cost to that? Would think so.

 

In general, Steam users, what are the pros/cons of Steam.

Thanks for any tips!!

[Algabar]

Welcome to Skyrim!

AFAIK, there is no legit way of playing Skyrim without Steam. To get the game to work (and mabye to get the software at all), you will have to create a Steam account (which is free of course) and add your game key to Steam. You can then download the game in its current version from Steam. Once you've done that, you don't need to be permanently online in Steam while playing Skyrim. You can set Steam to "offline" mode. So in short: No Skyrim without Steam. Just the way it is nowadays for almost any game.... Steam may be annoying, but it's still a very commonly used and absolutely safe platform.

 

As for modding: Mods on Steam are currently free. Of course you can download mods from Steam. Just remember to unsubscribe to a mod, if you don't want it anymore. Otherwise it will always be reinstalled after you went online with Steam.

 

Personally, I get most of my mods here from the Nexus. It's still the largest Skyrim modding community with the most and (IMHO) the best stuff. You can either use the Nexus Mod Manager (download-link at the top of almost every Nexus page). Or you can install mods manually (basically you download a zip file, unzip the archive and copy all files into your Skyrim/data folder). Generally, manual install is NOT recommended for beginners.

 

Feel free to ask if you have fruther questions - and good luck on your travels in Skyrim!

[jesusristus]

So, as Algabar said, Steam can be set to offline mode and only needs to make a connection like twice a year or something iirc. I'm also fairly certain Steam client can be closed after it's lauched the game if it for some reason bothers you.

Steam installs the games by default on "\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common" BUT this is NOT where you wan't your Skyrim folder to be. For permission reasons you should install it instead outside of windows's default folders, say in "C\:Games\" or similar.

I don't recommend installing any mods for Skyrim from Steam Workshop, because it's auto-update can mess things up pretty bad. You can use the Nexus Mod Manager to install the mods just fine.

[catsbane]

Thanks for the info guys. All helpful stuff. That offline mode is what I want I think but I'm not seeing any option or setting for that. If someone could point me in that direction? Guessing I could just run the launcher or TESV.exe while offline as well? Will attempt that shortly. Thanks for that pointer to the steamapps\common folder jc! One other question, if I happen to squirrel up my Skyrim so badly in my modding that it (and my backups) are unusable would I just uninstall Steam and reinstall? Hopefully won't get to that point but Oblivion was such a pain to uninstall and I want to avoid any unforeseen complications.

Thanks again algabar and jc!

[69mAnU96]

Open Steam.

The first tab is Steam.

Click, second line: Go offline.

Close Steam.

 

:-)

[jesusristus]

If things go fubar you'd just delete the Skyrim installation folder, then right click the game in your steam library and there's an option to "verify game files." It will then download the game again.

[catsbane]

got it! thanks again all.