Bess Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 For a wild moment there, I thought I had something meaningful to add, but then I thought I'd just as soon not throw myself into this mix after all. You fellas enjoy yourselves, now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
worldofscotty Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 On a more serious note I do understand what he's saying (albeit badly expressed). Starting in offline mode usually results in an error message saying they can't contact the server. It's all well and good changing to offline mode when your already online but I do like being online to chat to my friends while I play. I have nearly 200 games on my steam now and Virgin Broadband in my area went down for 3 days and I couldn't access any of them. It's quite frustrating and I was close to going outside and talking to real people at one point!! Messed up or what!!!??!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrivener07 Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 I have nearly 200 games on my steam now and Virgin Broadband in my area went down for 3 days and I couldn't access any of them. It's quite frustrating and I was close to going outside and talking to real people at one point!! Messed up or what!!!??!! That sounds awful! :ohdear: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxlRocks Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 On a more serious note I do understand what he's saying (albeit badly expressed). Starting in offline mode usually results in an error message saying they can't contact the server. It's all well and good changing to offline mode when your already online but I do like being online to chat to my friends while I play. I have nearly 200 games on my steam now and Virgin Broadband in my area went down for 3 days and I couldn't access any of them. It's quite frustrating and I was close to going outside and talking to real people at one point!! Messed up or what!!!??!! Yeah, I know how that feels. My internet goes down on average once a month for a day, sometimes more. Just recently it did and I also get that error, and needless to say, in all seriousness it does make me quite angry to not be able to play what I legally purchased with real US currency for a real disc whose contents are also on my harddrive and activated through Steam. Luckily, I found a supposed fix for this. First, connect normally to Steam anytime you have internet. Next, for good measure, tell it to go offline. Then, finally, Exit steam by right clicking the icon in the system tray or by going to Steam > Exit in the main GUI. This is the important part, sometimes when you don't exit Steam that way, say just shutting down or you lose power, a certain file corrupts. What you need to do is now backup this file because having shut down Steam correctly, it isn't corrupt. Go to your Steam Folder, then to SteamApps. Inside is the file winui.gcf. Go ahead and just copy and paste that and leave the copy as is. Now, turn off your internet connection and try Steam again, you should be fine to connect offline. If for any reason, your other WinUI.GCF get's corrupted, just do a rename switch and run Steam with the backup and it should be perfectly fine. It works for me so far, and I've seen no changes/issues nor do I think anyone on the official thread has. Here is the link, but the forums are down right now. They'll be back up around Valve:45. Hope this helps. My link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rizon72 Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 At least Steam hasn't made me want to stop playing a game yet, like Origin has with BF3. I will admit I never liked the idea that I have to connect to the internet to play a game (that wasn't an online game). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blitzen Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 It would be nice if Steam provided a way to shut down once the game has been started via Steam, so that the Steam process wasn't running in the background while playing the game. It's not a problem having it start up with the game, but being able to shut it down once the game is running would free up resources. Some people believe Steam itself causes occasional Skyrim crashes on their computers. Merely running offline isn't quite the same. Other than that, I don't know of any real problems with using Steam. I followed the steps AxlRocks posted and was able to start up Steam offline after pulling the internet cable out. So losing internet does not seem to be a problem with that approach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostjohnny Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Some people believe Steam itself causes occasional Skyrim crashes on their computers. I'm one of those people. Skyrim has been freezing for me; fairly randomly - usually after playing for a while, but not always, which I initially thought might be a memory problem as I've had that sort of thing happen on a previous computer that had a bad stick of RAM. However, every test I tried indicated there was no problem with my hardware. Earlier today I installed this: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27959 and haven't had a freeze since (in 4-5 hours play). Not conclusive, but fairly suggestive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h0rsel0ver Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Yeah, I know how that feels. My internet goes down on average once a month for a day, sometimes more. Just recently it did and I also get that error, and needless to say, in all seriousness it does make me quite angry to not be able to play what I legally purchased with real US currency for a real disc whose contents are also on my harddrive and activated through Steam. Luckily, I found a supposed fix for this. First, connect normally to Steam anytime you have internet. Next, for good measure, tell it to go offline. Then, finally, Exit steam by right clicking the icon in the system tray or by going to Steam > Exit in the main GUI. This is the important part, sometimes when you don't exit Steam that way, say just shutting down or you lose power, a certain file corrupts. What you need to do is now backup this file because having shut down Steam correctly, it isn't corrupt. Go to your Steam Folder, then to SteamApps. Inside is the file winui.gcf. Go ahead and just copy and paste that and leave the copy as is. Now, turn off your internet connection and try Steam again, you should be fine to connect offline. If for any reason, your other WinUI.GCF get's corrupted, just do a rename switch and run Steam with the backup and it should be perfectly fine. It works for me so far, and I've seen no changes/issues nor do I think anyone on the official thread has. Here is the link, but the forums are down right now. They'll be back up around Valve:45. Hope this helps. My link This is incredibly useful thanks for the tip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereko Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 (edited) I have to say I do like Skyrim and think it is a great game, and Bethesda are doing some good things but yes, it is unfortunate that they are using steam. All part of the new "cloud" software Nonsense making people dependant on the company to access the software they supposedly purchased. Yes you get a DVD but you still have to be online for a full installation. Otherwise the DVD will not do you much good obviously all the installation files are not on the DVD and either part of the software or activation files have to be accessed online for the DVD to work. All the people that are kidding themselves how convenient this is, keep in mind you can never go wrong being self reliant. If you've got the full Program on DVD all you need is a computer and a plugin and you can access your game or software regardless of what the company does or promises or whether they keep their promises. Of course company's would prefer to lease things to people rather than sell it to them. If you sell it you get the customers money once, if you lease you continually get money from them. This in my opinion and in the business plans of several company's out there is... once enough people have been convinced to place part or all of their data or software such as games/movies ect with company's on a "cloud" (translation on their servers or hard drives not yours) mark my words they will start to charge you monthly fees eventually to store it. (We allready see more and more electronics being pushed with less storage capacity) Tick the company off or break one of their rules and there goes your movies games and software access. People should wake up to this, remember the saying, possession is 90% of the law. Edited December 10, 2012 by dereko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadiast Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Well, someones a little late to the party. Personally, i think steam was a brilliant idea. It gives me acces to my game collection anywhere i have an internet connection (which is just about everywhere i go) i dont have to worry about constantly looking up if theres a new update, i can get games without having to take the hours drive into town, i can easially coordinate with friends. Now make it by choice instead of mandatory and you have one more person who shares your opinion. Steam is like somebody forcefeeding you chocolate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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