Does Steam have to be connected to the Internet?

is steam so supposed to be connected to the internet at all time to play the games that are bought....or no
cuz im gonna buy call of duty world at war right now just wanna make sure

 

You can run Steam in offline mode if you're not connected to the internet. You can definitely play the single player or LAN Co-op/Multiplayer.

 

you just have to finish updating the game, because if youre in the middle of the update download and try to play, you wont be able to do it

 

Impulse > Steam


That is all.

 

No crappy programs > the rest of them

even better

 

Why do you say that? Im looking for a good gaming platform.

 

Obligatory Disclaimer: The reasons are based solely on my opinion/experiences, running both services...

Impulse plusses:

• Faster download connections.
• Internet connection not necessary once game is on your machine (with Steam you still need to toggle a setting to be able to play offline).
• Better prices for the most part.
• Better philosophy on DRM.
• Less intrusive on system resources.
• If Impulse is uninstalled, the games still remain to play!

Steam plusses:

• Valve games.

I was really annoyed when I purchased a retail copy of Empire Total War on one of my newly built desktops that did not have Steam installed. Not only did I have to have Steam, Empire would not install until activation was performed over the internet even with a serial key included in the game box!

With a Stardock game I could install the retail game without needing Impulse or activation. Their EULA also allows for installation on a desktop AND laptop concurrently.

I'm forced to use Steam to play the games I want. But I prefer Impulse for all the reasons above.

Think what you may but Steam is a bane to legitimate gamers.

 

+1 I would feel a lot better about steam if they did nothing but made it so I didn't have to start steam to play one of their games. I still wouldn't like it but at least I wouldn't loathe it. Demigod was my first experience with impulse and I also like it much better than steam. Its there if I need or want it otherwise it stays out of the way. Exactly what such a service should be instead of cramming unwanted programming down our throats and forcing us to jump hoops to get to the content we already paid for in the hopes of getting more money. That says to me I don't care about you and my only concern is to scrape as much ching off your hide as I can, your user experience be damned.

 

impulse kinda reminds me of direct to drive so i liked it.

 

Yeah, I got to see steam with Dawn of War II, and wasn't impressed. Initially didn't have access to the internet for activation (despite having the code in hand for my legitimately purchased copy), and as a result had to wait until I did get back to my internet connection before I could play. Frustrating - and really unnecessary, as I really don't see what I get out of the steam thing. I play single player, so there isn't any MP advantage for me.

I guess it updates the games for me, so that's nice, but I could do that myself...

 

Well I dunno, I think its the community aspect or the auto updates, download your game on any pc anywhere, no need to find dvd/cds or cd keys, friends, weekend deals and its shift tab features with any games... But as you mentioned you are only a single player gamer, so you don't have to use every feature steam provides but some of its services are great.

 

I do admit that Steam is nice to be able to play your library of games on pretty much any PC. For games that don't require a lot of HDD access, I have the games installed on an external USB drive, so I can play the games across multiple machines too, without having to have the game installed on several of them taking up the same amount of space.

This, however, got me thinking about a service similar to that OnLive service, except not quite as intense as far as internet connection speed.

It would be nice if you could keep the actual game data files on a high speed online server, so you wouldn't need to take up hard drive space on every PC that you wanted to play it on. Only install critical game files and the remaining 8GB (or whatever) would be on the server. This way, you could log on to any machine, and play without installing, or at least with a minimal install. Of course, make this an optional service, because you'd still want to have local files for your laptop or whatever when you don't have internet access.

 

To me Steam is a sugar coated cynide pill, when it works you are in bliss when it doesn't nothing can frustrate you more than it...

 

I've always liked Steam, but then again, I've always had a steady internet connection.

That said, it is entirely possible to run Call of Duty World at War without Steam even running. Once you download and install the game via Steam, it is installed exactly the same way as the retail disk version. Just navigate to the installation folder (by default it's C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty World at War\) and run the game's .exe files. Steam normally acts as a launcher.

I haven't really experimented much with this, since I'm pretty much always connected to the internet, but this should work with any Steam-based game. For any Source game, hl2.exe...for any other third party game, the game's own .exe file should work.

 

I have mine set up that way too but the doesnt stop the fact that it loads steam before it loads your game. And no, I dont want to have to load up steam at start up since its just wasted resources most of the time and more so since I am nearly always playing most games off line anyways.

 

You can still access the .exe in ur /steamapps folder /common/ call of duty (find it not sure where it is). You should be able to run that exe without launching steam to begin with.

It works with most non-valve games.

 

Although it would be nice to have the option, I must disagree for realism's sake.

My ISP only provides 60gb of bandwidth, which means if I play once a day I'll have to download like what, 2gb? That just about meets my bandwidth. Moreover, if it "caches" the data, it would be on your harddrive anyway, until you delete the cache.

I think storing on the hard drive is better, plus, 1TB hard drives are only about a hundred bucks nowadays.

 

Heh, say what you will about Steam and how it's beyond evil...I haven't had any problems with it and probably won't for the foreseeable future. I will continue to enjoy my Valve games (and larger library of other developers) and my Steam community.