Seriously Steam...

[Spitfire]

1. Says all OP is doing is "whining" when OP has legit points.

The OP does have legit points, but I was more interested to know why you think that the notion of logging in to Steam once a month, and then playing the rest of the time in offline mode, is untrue. In fact, when I read your reply to "GenericAmerican", I decided to put this to the test. I restarted Steam in offline mode, disabled my internet connection (just to be sure), and then restarted my PC, and with my internet connection still disabled, I managed to start Steam in offline mode, with no problems whatsoever. I did found a couple of games that didn't work, because they weren't properly updated before going into offline mode, but other than that, everything seemed to work fine.
Unless I'm missing something here, it should be perfectly possible to use Steam in offline mode for a month, as "GenericAmerican" claimed, and probably much much longer than that.

2. Might be the case, but makes no sense to me I should disable it, when it is asking me to have it enabled.

When does Steam ask you to have that option enabled? That's odd.

Still doesen't work for me. I am on Steam every moment on my computer. It starts automatically on my computer. I have not once heard the "once a month" thing ever in my life. Either that is because it is (as I thought) and untruth, or Steam is just piss-poor at explaining offline mode (which I have found they are).

The once a month thing is just an example. What I was trying to demonstrate, was that it should be perfectly possible to run Steam in offline mode for an indefinite amount of time, including, but not limited to one month.

 

[Naeras]

It's not that bad a system. It's only preventing you from playing if the internet is going to be down when you don't know about it. That's one scenario. In your case steam isn't stopping you, it's just 1) you didn't prepare for the internet to be down by switching to offline mode beforehand and 2) you have to move your computer to connect it to the internet temporarily.

If you're so used to playing offline one wonders why you were online at all. Was it perchance to take advantage of the steam sales?

Yeah. Anyone who goes on, say, a cabin trip and wants to play Steam games on their laptop during the trip should obviously turn on Offline Mode when they're at home, then bring the laptop with them and not turn the laptop off for the next week. I mean, that's entirely reasonable, right?

Ok, yeah, I thought this was puzzling so I tried it out. I turned off my computer and internet then restarted and ran steam. It said would I like to start in offline mode. I said yes. It started.

Remind me... what's the issue here?

..what? For me (and everyone else I've talked to) it refuses to run offline mode unless I can connect to the internet before I turn on offline mode.

If the offline mode was that easily accessible I would obviously not be complaining.

 

[Daveman]

It's not that bad a system. It's only preventing you from playing if the internet is going to be down when you don't know about it. That's one scenario. In your case steam isn't stopping you, it's just 1) you didn't prepare for the internet to be down by switching to offline mode beforehand and 2) you have to move your computer to connect it to the internet temporarily.

If you're so used to playing offline one wonders why you were online at all. Was it perchance to take advantage of the steam sales?

Yeah. Anyone who goes on, say, a cabin trip and wants to play Steam games on their laptop during the trip should obviously turn on Offline Mode when they're at home, then bring the laptop with them and not turn the laptop off for the next week. I mean, that's entirely reasonable, right?

Ok, yeah, I thought this was puzzling so I tried it out. I turned off my computer and internet then restarted and ran steam. It said would I like to start in offline mode. I said yes. It started.

Remind me... what's the issue here?

..what? For me (and everyone else I've talked to) it refuses to run offline mode unless I can connect to the internet before I turn on offline mode.

If the offline mode was that easily accessible I would obviously not be complaining.

Similarly you can understand why I'm perplexed by people complaining. I know it does happen to me occasionally but I think it's to do with steam updating which means so long as you aren't off for quite a long time (like more than a couple of weeks). I'm not sure if it was that or just my uni internet being a dick occasionally but that's where I've had issues.

 

[Naeras]

Similarly you can understand why I'm perplexed by people complaining. I know it does happen to me occasionally but I think it's to do with steam updating which means so long as you aren't off for quite a long time (like more than a couple of weeks). I'm not sure if it was that or just my uni internet being a dick occasionally but that's where I've had issues.

I'm fairly certain that's not the case, as I have an internet connection most of the time myself, yet offline mode refuses to start even though I was on the online mode less than an hour ago, if I turn my computer and Steam on without an internet connection.

I've heard someone claim that what you're experiencing is actually a bug. In which case it's probably the most awesome bug in gaming history. I've got no actual way of verifying that claim, though, but like I said, it seems to be far more common that offline mode can't be accessed without having a connection first.

 

[Zebidizy]

well this is interesting..
first England has more sun than Northern Ireland, and it was quite warm when I left it and came back to rain rain and more rain
second feck is not fuck its acceptable on its fucking own thank you very much.
third thanks for all the helpful stuff and I think steam is one of the best things to come out of the gaming world never hated it and probably never will. Plus its not as if it was the end of the world. I have other things in my life that can keep entertained for the next month or so.
fourth cant do any changes in this house... I am a guest after all and only here for 2 months.
finally as wonderful as Google is I'm a lazy **** and it is alot easier to just ask..plus as I said I needed the rant... but to all the people who have kindly helped me thanks. If I ever meet you I'll buy you a pint, or a drink of your choosing.

 

[Dr Jones]

Snip

I shouldn't have to make it work. Steam is a product that is pretty much unavoidable if you want to play computer some of the most recent, biggest PC games. I have never done anything to tamper with the offline functionality of it, and I stated before that I have a theory as to why it doesen't work (Steam Guard) but the problem just is, that I shouldn't have to make it work. It should just work from the beginning.

 

[dfphetteplace]

As long as you have played the game once online, you can play it in offline mode as long as the game maker hasn't put any further DRM in place. Problem solved.

 

[suitepee7]

all you need to do is switch to offline mode once, and it should save your client settings. if not, delete the client file, then do it, and it will work. mine does anyway

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It's not that bad a system. It's only preventing you from playing if the internet is going to be down when you don't know about it. That's one scenario. In your case steam isn't stopping you, it's just 1) you didn't prepare for the internet to be down by switching to offline mode beforehand and 2) you have to move your computer to connect it to the internet temporarily.

If you're so used to playing offline one wonders why you were online at all. Was it perchance to take advantage of the steam sales?

Yeah. Anyone who goes on, say, a cabin trip and wants to play Steam games on their laptop during the trip should obviously turn on Offline Mode when they're at home, then bring the laptop with them and not turn the laptop off for the next week. I mean, that's entirely reasonable, right?

Why would you go on a cabin trip just to sit inside and play video games the whole time!? Go outside, man!

I'd rather not go outside when it's pouring down, so it's nice to be able to play something if the weather turns to shit and we go tired of board games. Or we might want to do some rounds of Worms in the evening for family time(which is GREAT family time, by the way ).

Except we can't, because there's no offline mode now that we actually need one.

That blows though. I keep hearing of people having this problem but I've never had it personally. My games play offline just fine. Of course, I remember having to go six months without access to the majority of my Steam games just because a patch to the client caused every game to crash on load. So I've had my issues in the past as well.

 

[Johnson McGee]

What you can do to get steam to launch in offline mode at any time is first, enable the offline mode, then do a backup of the two .blob files in the steam directory. Any time you want to go on offline mode without triggering it online first you can restore the .blobs from the backup and it will work.

But you have to update the backups any time you buy or install a new game though.

 

[Brandon Logan]

I use to be able to start it offline. In the last week that changed. I don`t have a stable internet connection so it was good....

Now I need to go online then offline to even play Borderlands single player.

 

[legendp]

When steam failed to connect online, it used to ask if you'd like to start in offline mode.

Due to reasons, they got rid of it. either because of hacking (using a third party to run through steam to download any game on steam. A real thing.) or account theft/piracy (In offline mode, you can play other accounts games, even if they're logged on.) So now you have to verify it by logging in, then going offline. Which I guess doesn't help a whole lot, but..you know...whatever.

Anyway, you can still start steam in offline mode, it's just a little more advanced now than it was before.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2641233

The games were getting pirated anyway, making it harder just makes it a bigger challenge for the crackers. so they get even more glory when they succeed. take a look at which version of the Witcher 2 was pirated first, it was not the GOG version even though that would have been extremely easy, it was the DRM version with securom that was pirated first (more glory). More and tighter DRM does not work to prevent pirates, if anything it just encourages them, and then converts more annoyed customers into piraters because they can no longer play there games offline.

I have encounted the same issue and I hate that steam is doing this, I bought I lot of steam sale games, But I may have to download pirated versions of the singleplayer games because I am fed up with "can not go offline at this time". it's why I am now looking at GOG a lot moe (got both witcher 1 and 2 for $17). I really hope steam fixes this problem. I use a laptop a lot and use mutiple OS's. Having to be online to go inot offline mode is just stupid.

my only hope then is that I can pair my phone with my laptop an get a faint signal to log into steam (I have 5GB every 45 days so bandwidth for me is not a problem, but it's an inconvenience and any people don't get the luxury of such a good deal)

 

[Zer_]

Sorry lads and but I'm in need of a good rant bare with me here. or if u want bear with me..rawwrrr *ahem*

I don't normally do this but bear with me means to put up with ne. Bare with me means, well, you can probably work that out.

Steams DRM is something I can bear with, but it is a shame you have to select offline mode pre-emptively.

It makes perfect sense to ensure Offline Mode works before the eventuality could arise where you would need it. That's called thinking ahead. No sympathy from me here.

 

[Rack]

Sorry lads and but I'm in need of a good rant bare with me here. or if u want bear with me..rawwrrr *ahem*

I don't normally do this but bear with me means to put up with ne. Bare with me means, well, you can probably work that out.

Steams DRM is something I can bear with, but it is a shame you have to select offline mode pre-emptively.

It makes perfect sense to ensure Offline Mode works before the eventuality could arise where you would need it. That's called thinking ahead. No sympathy from me here.

Assuming you always know when you'll have an Internet shortage that is. I've never been caught out when I've been expecting long periods without Internet access but it has been problematic with shorter unexpected periods.