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[alfie275]

Tip: If you know you won't have internet switch it into ofline mode.

[Saint]

I have actually never had it crash on me. Ever. The games can occasionally crash but that's hardly Steam's fault

[Soulwynd]

I break most of my steam games to work without steam. I only left a couple of them, like TF2 and Dirt2.

Tip: If you know you won't have internet switch it into ofline mode.

Protip: A lot of offline games don't work with offline mode.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Tip: If you know you won't have internet switch it into ofline mode.

You need to connect to the steam servers just to start steam, if you can't do that you can't even switch it to offline mode, and there is no way(as far as I know) to start it in offline mode.

[Soulwynd]

Tip: If you know you won't have internet switch it into ofline mode.

You need to connect to the steam servers just to start steam, if you can't do that you can't even switch it to offline mode, and there is no way(as far as I know) to start it in offline mode.

If you have internet access, but know you wont have it for a while, do this before going offline:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGCB-2555

Also, this used to work:
Create a text file named "steam.cfg" inside your steam folder and throw in "ForceOfflineMode=Enable". You will still need to have your stuff saved as said in the support article.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Yes well... Thanks steam for making this incredibly convoluted.

[Deon]

The only game I have installed in my username directory is Pirates, Vikings and Knights II, which I have not actually played a game of.

DO IT . Awesome mod. We can play it together.

[x2yzh9]

I have actually never had it crash on me. Ever. The games can occasionally crash but that's hardly Steam's fault

[head]

I've been a pro-steam guy since launch(even if the launch was horrid) but it never crashed for me since that.

[TheCze]

Steam is my main gaming platform.

Never experienced any serious problems with it, sure, Steam crashed a few times in the last few years, but you can count those occasions on one hand. DF is crashing more often

[Calhoun]

I love Steam, a lot. It's the only DRM that I don't hate, because it offers me real incentives. I hate DRM, but with steam, it's as if it isn't there. Offline mode works fine, sure, you need to be online to enable it, but once you are in offline mode, you could keep it that way for the rest of eternity. The every day deals are awesome, the holiday special was amazing (I purchased around 50 games during that time period.) The only time steam has ever really annoyed me, is that if my connection is very slow, launching steam is a total pain. It takes almost a half hour to get things running smoothly, i don't know if this is normal for everyone with slow connections, or just the nature of mine (A very painfully piss-poor wireless connection.) However, I'm not going to fault steam too much for it, because it was probably more the connections fault.

I have around 150 steam games, and while some of them may not be the greatest games, i regret none of my purchases, as the ones that aren't great I got for so cheap, I can't complain. Plus, Steam community INGAME. I love it! I've experimented with one program which would allow me to use a web broweser inside a game, didn't work for shit. I love that feature so damn much. Plus, the clock is great too, I tend to lose track of time while I'm playing, and now I don't have to alt-tab out to check. (Also helps with non alt-tab friendly games.)

The social networking features are pretty standard, but good. I wish there was an integrated Meebo/pidgin omni-network chat client. I can use meebo in the web browser, but there is no tabbed browsing, so it gets to be a pain to have a wiki up and meebo up at the same time.

Still, what it offers is great.

Seriously, I fucking love Steam.

It also usually doesn't interfere with the mod-ability of a game, which is nice.

That said, Steam has learned a lot from it's primary competitor, Impulse, and while I do not USE Impulse, as far as the need for competition goes, I hope that Impulse sticks around for as long as Steam does. I don't think Valve would turn into an evil company if it gained a monopoly, but hey, let's not find out

TL;DR:
Valve does good things very well. Steam doesn't disappoint.

[Rilder]

I wish I was as crash free as you guys, trying to download the new update to TF2 it crashed at least 10 times in one night.

[nenjin]

Like I said, Steam still has the problems of a major network hub. On release/patch day, Steam gets ****ing nailed. To the point where it can bog down their whole service.

[qwertyuiopas]

I have seen steam fail to login(no internet access), and then ask if it should use offline mode or try to connect again.

In my opinion, the best features of it are the ability to pause/resume downloads, and the fact that the games remain available even if you don't have them anymore. I still prefer no-DRM(or minimal DRM) downloads of smaller games directly from their sites(The HIB is great for this, as they will probably try to keep downloads available for as long as possible, accessable anytime by email. Key-based ones where a small file or code turns the freely available demo into the full game is also good as a non-steam game, unless there is a steam sale on that game.)

[Calhoun]

Like I said, Steam still has the problems of a major network hub. On release/patch day, Steam gets ****ing nailed. To the point where it can bog down their whole service.

I really haven't experienced that. When the Orange Box released, I had no speed problems with preloading. Speeds weren't as high as usual, but there wasn't a huge speed problem. And I have definitively never seen any speed problems with major TF2 patches. Or even The Passing DLC for L4D2 (Or L4D2 preloading, for that matter.)

Though, After all the class updates, you sure were flooded with the class that was updated, but that's really more of a community problem than steam/valve's fault.

Hell, the Preloading system itself cuts down on that problem, because instead of everyone downloading it when it releases theres time before release, where people can download at their leisure, to play AT release.