So Christmas (merry one to you all) has come and my dad has gotten Skyrim and Civ 5.

Both need steam.

Now when I tried steam early when they first came out, it sucked. It crashed and I had to re download any game. I tried to uninstall it and it wouldn't uninstall all of it (that got me annoyed). Basically, I gave up on it.

I want to play these games but I"m hearing nightmares about the autopatching/offline mode (Skyrim patches have not been good so I hear). I feel uncomfortable not having control over what does and doesn't go on my computer. I heard there are "ways" of getting around but I don't know how and don't want to go through the hasle.

The settings don't work and when they do it is temporary. The offline mode reverts, etc.

Another thing I hear is sometimes steam installs the game through steam and not the retail cd (and there is a whole process). Basically I'm not really hearing much improvement and hoped that some steam users can give me an objective point of view on the situation. Not really interested in pointless bashing.

Basically what have been your experience? Is it worth it? Addressing specific concerns from above would also be useful.

Thanks for taking your time to reply.

Steam is ebil, get your dad some gogs instead ;)

Steam is honestly a great service, even if it is blemished by some annoying issues (offline mode being iffy, things being linked to your account, not really "owning" your titles).

It is DRM. It is not the most invasive DRM, but it is DRM, but they try to alleviate by providing USEFUL FEATURES to the player.

You can download your things on any computer, there are no installation limits, unless the game bundles yet another DRM, IIRC things like Batman AA had a 5 machine limit besides Steam.

Personally, I've had excellent experiences with Steam, and even the customer service was fast (faster than on Direct2Drive, even!), and for newer titles, I always try to find versions that allow me to add them to mmy steam list. I recommend the service

Edit: Autopatching is both good and bad, since it IS convenient, but it can be very annoying in things that are patched very often (TF2 and Dungeon Defenders), or things where it bugs out and tries to redownload the entire game (Witcher 2), as well as things where the publisher refuses to let Steam distribute the patch (Ubisoft, that was the reason why Anno 1404 is not sold on Steam anymore), but in general it is convenient and useful.

I believe the "I don't care if you have the disc, I'm downloading the whole game anyway. So there!" problem still exists. Not sure if the offline mode problems have been fixed but I hear about them a bit less now. I'm not really a regular user of Steam though (I've cracked the few games I've bought there), so wait for more definitive answers.

The only time I've had to install something from disc was with Civ V. It installed things from disc, and then updated 200 or so megs from online. It was fast and easy.

Not to hijack the thread but I idn't want to make a new one for my issue: I'm using steam and all my games work except Dungeons of Dredmore. It played yesterday, but today is a no go. I've deleted the local files and redownloaded, rebooted, and am currently verifying the game cache files. So far nothing works.

(At this point i'm not beyond pirating a copy free of steam as this blows......I got it legally but yet they can tell me when I cna and cannot play? Meh.)

hi,

Steam is a decent service and improved greatly from the early years, and it offers the benefits of convenience in exchange for lost of control over your game. The offline mode is spotty for some people and is unlikely to be fixed by Valve if you're having problems with the offline mode. Games automatically update itself, which is considered to be a benefit for most steam fans due to convenience but can be rather annoying if you want to stay at a particular build of the game. You can manually tell steam to not update a particular, but sometimes it would just ignore your settings. If you're planning on using the built in benefits on steam, the steam service should provide for a net benefit toward your enjoyment of the game. If you're not using the steam features, then its just another drm with unlimited installs.

Well that is interesting. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Sure I know it is DRM but the real question here is: Is it WORTH it with the problems?

I don't mind patching but what happens if the patches make the game more buggy/unplayable (Skryim). I HATE the idea of trying to circumvent the steam to keep an default game...

I don't mind one online activation but the more I read about steam (how the offline mode and auto patch revert to default settings [conspiracy?]) the more hesitant I am.

The auto patching really bothers me as it feels I don't have control over what goes into my system regardless.
I'm reading all of your replies by the way.

I thank the ones that go more into detail and address some of my more specific concerns.

Just disable autopatching ....you have to do it for each game you own but you can do it by right clicking a game title in your library, hitting properties, and going to the autopatching tab and selecting not to let it do so. Only thing is then you won't get any future updates but the games will run fine.

Ignore your settings?

That is quiet weird and disturbing...

Are the setting just for show?

Can someone go into more DETAIL about this?

Read my post above yours to see how to disabled autopatching.

Basically if u want a game on steam, you'll have to put up with Steam unless you can find a cheaper alternative which may or may not have a worse drm option than steam,
I can tell you offline mode does work, but after a few enquiries - no one including Steam support has any idea how long you can stay offline for before going back online to revalidate the offline function.

Is this a permanent fix?

Or is it temp?

I've never had any issues with steam. Since you're talking about problems that you had when they first came out, I'd say they've probably fixed it by now. As drms go, steam is a fairly mild one imo.