Several newbie questions

[Dogway]

Hello, I registered long ago, but only now I will start to play seriously. I have a few questions to get myself started.

I want to ask if when you download a title, you download the game as is, or the setup file which then will be used for install. In either case will they use any other folder than this? (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps) This is a symlink to D:\ since C: is a SSD in my system.

Another question is can I play a friend's game offline while he is playing offline?

And also there is another issue, probably not anymore from now, but everytime I entered Steam I had to confirm my email. Why this happens? I used to enter like once every 1 or 2 months.

By the way, is there a chat inside Steam client?

[Freedomf63]

1) Most games download in full to your harddrive. Just click download, wait, play. But there is like a very few handleful of games that might do this. I think I've seen maybe one or two (and I own like ~300+ games). And there is a third thing I've seen where you click play in steam but instead of loading the game, it loads a launcher. And from there you can choose (usually) different visual settings or different ways to launch the game. (Ie. DX 11, 12...idk)

2) You can only play games that you have bought or are apart of your "family" sharing. This can be complicated, but in short if you buy a game you can add, I believe up to 4 people, who are supposed to be in your family. Once you have done that, say your little brother could play any of your games, as long as you are not playing them at the same time . There is also in home streaming if you're interested in that. But for now I'll just link you to the sharing post from Valve. http://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing

3) Uh, not too sure on this one. As long as you enter in the conformation code and give the pc a name to recognize it next time it should remember you. Unless maybe you are logging in from different location/devices, or your IP is chaning alot. Not too sure, never had that problem so maybe some one else can help you out.

EDIT: Yes there is in game chat, and just instant messaging. Just go to friends, click on the downward facing triangle, next to their name, and then just hit send message. There is also in game, and out side game voice comms.

New to PC gaming? Welcome brother.
http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/

[AxAffect]

Hello,
I'm new to Steam too, and I have just another quick question.
Is there an all purpose way to invite friends into your game? Something like how Xbox does it where you can go to your friends list and invite them into whatever game you're currently playing.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Originally posted by AxAffect:

Hello,
I'm new to Steam too, and I have just another quick question.
Is there an all purpose way to invite friends into your game? Something like how Xbox does it where you can go to your friends list and invite them into whatever game you're currently playing.

You can do it right from your friends' list.

[Dogway]

Thanks a lot Freedomf63, I embrace PCmasterrace.

Yes, my question was towards "family sharing", I was unsure how it was called so my question was a bit loose. FAQ says I must be online for playing those games despite not playing any online feature in-game... It also states that I can't play the game when my friend is playing it, I understand when he is playing it "while being online", even if it's only campaign. Question is if he is offline then I can play? And also, if while I'm playing, he decides to play, what happens?

About (text) chat I meant a community general chat, like the forums? is there such thing to talk or ask questions?

Also at last, there's a game I want to OWN, it's called War Thunder, but it's Free-to-Play, is this game sold as retail? I would like to own it and play whenever I want, without expiration dates, etc

[Dogway]

I want to ask also, is it mandatory to set "high performance" for every game on nvidia panel? or is there some steam/game setting that overrides that?

[Dogway]

Hello, can anyone help me answer the above questions?

[Freedomf63]

Oops, for some reason the check mark for the subscribe to discussion was unchecked. And I'm in the mid of moving so right now on shared family laptop For family sharing the only reason you would have to be online to play those games is if, oh boy example time. Say your brother buys the game, you would have to remain online to have access to play his game. And an extra benefit is say your brother lives with you and you have a laptop that couldn't necessarily run those types of hardware demanding games. You could stream the game from his computer to your laptop, and that's more of a obvious reason you would have to stay online.

And funny enough most people don't realize but steam does have a drm. If you don't log into Steam (ie not start in offline mode) for like a week or two, you will not have access to your games.

Um for forums, there are plenty. All games have their own forums, just look in your library, click on the game, and to the left you should see an option. You can also create your own forums, and there many forums based off basic ideals. PCMRism, etc, etc .

For your Q for War Thunder. I'm not too sure, I'm assuming by retail copy you mean a disc. And for that I would think you should go onto their website/forums or contact their pr (Twitter maybe?) and see if they do. As far as I know War Thunder is PVP only. Not really any bots, maybe not. But can't be too helpful there.

For the Q on Nivida game panel auto setting itself to high performance. I again am no expert, only got AMD stuff. If I could throw a guess at it, I would think there is a preference in the settings somewhere in the panel settings. Probably just set that way to maximize your hardware when you want to. But maybe go to a Nvidia forum that, or maybe some else can help. I'll ask some buddies too if I get the chance.

Sorry about being almost a day late.

[Dogway]

I couldn't understand the family share explanation you did to me. It's called family share, but I have a friend who lives some minutes away from car. I just want to play the games. probably I should ask this in support? I thought these type of things were commonly known by steam veterans.

I asked about real time text chat, not forums, is there something like that here to ask these questions?

I ask about War Thunder because I did a search and couldn't find any retail version. I would like to buy it, and belong to the game's community. I guess one way could be to download it and make a backup, but sincerely, this game deserves better, I want to own the game.

[Freedomf63]

As long as only one person is playing the game in "family sharing" program everything should be fine. You must remain online if you wish to play a game that you have not bought with the account you are playing on.

There is real time chat with friends, you can also invite other people to join your chat as well so a group of your friends can all type or talk to each other at once. There is also live chat rooms, that are always open but these are for groups (as far as I know).

And for War Thunder, I believe you are right. Alot of PC games or digital downloads only, for most people this isn't too bad but for areas with download caps and slow speeds it isn't really preferable. So yeah, I would just tell you to download it off Steam if that's still an option for you.

[Yeezy | Skinhub.com]

Get good and stop being a casual please. :)

[Dogway]

If I'm playing then, can the owner of the game kick me out? how does it work?

ill - Pronax: I don't understand your message, sorry man.

[Freedomf63]

Originally posted by Dogway:

If I'm playing then, can the owner of the game kick me out? how does it work?

ill - Pronax: I don't understand your message, sorry man.

I believe it gives you about 5 minutes before it boots you out so the original purchaser can play.

[Dogway]

Thank you!