(Possible returning player) Do I *need* to link Steam to Arc to play?

[FFN]

I haven't played STO since the early days of F2P, but thanks to Certifiably In Game's series, it looks a lot more interesting than when I last played (I am aware of the rather un-Federation cashshop and lockbox nonsense that were introduced around the time I stopped playing)

I've researched and I can either install from Steam or the Arc client, but now I apparently need to link my Steam account to Arc? And that it immediately caused problems for some people?

So, do I need to do anything other than install this from Steam? Thanks

[Baroon Valm]

You can install it via steam, however DON'T run the game via steam, instead just use the non steam exe.. running the game via steam will remove your existing account so if you got anything valuable there, DON'T run the game with steam

[Wolverine]

Install it through Steam, then look for the Star Trek Online.exe in the game folder and simply create a shortcut for it on your desktop. That will start the game launcher directly and you don't have to use ARC or Steam for it... unless you want to run it through Steam to keep track of your game time for example.

@Baroon Valm, what are you talking about? When i start STO through Steam, i still have to log into the game with my ARC credentials, and i'm not losing anything by doing that.

[FFN]

Ahh thanks. I read that merely attempting to login through Steam automatically links to Arc, which are the problems you're describing (and that I've read elsewhere), yeah? Any other dodginess I should avoid?

I should add I asked about Steam because I don't want to install the Arc client. Good to know I won't be forced to.

[Baroon Valm]

well i know of plenty of people who one day ran STO via steam, logged on, and whole account was wiped out when that arc-steam ♥♥♥♥ came a while ago.

[Wolverine]

The only other thing that comes to mind is that you shouldn't buy ZEN through the Steam Overlay, since you might not get Bonus ZEN or any other perks from events or promotions by doing it.

There's no reason for linking ARC/Steam accounts anyway for STO, you can play through either one of those launchers or simply use the regular game launcher as mentioned above.

Can't say much about linking ARC/Steam accounts, haven't done that, only time i had to change something with my account was when Cryptic was gobbled up by PWI... there were some issues around it, but no major account problems since then.

[Running-Target]

You have to link your old Cryptic STO account to any Arcgames account if you wanna play with your old STO account. Otherwise just make a new Arcgames account and start over.

Within a month of releasing the Steam account linking, they disabled it, so there is no worries there. It only enabled a quicker login to STO, where you just click play on steam, and STO accepts your Steam account as your STO account username and password.

If you have the Arcgames Launcher installed on your computer, i suggest you uninstall it as soon as possible. Do the stuff you wanna do with like install all their games and do their quests for zen rewards, then uninstall. Make sure to tell it to keep all the games installed.

There is nothing wrong with the Steam loaded version of STO, if you check my profile i have 4,000ish hours in-game. It only provides Steam Overlay, and maybe you can use your Steam wallet to pay for your zen coin purchases.

Read here >
https://support.arcgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018039334-How-do-I-link-my-Cryptic-and-Arc-accounts-

[FFN]

I keep reading about people who advise against using Steam wallet to buy Zen (ugh) because it may lock the Zen for a few days/week and will bind anything you buy to your account (which is fine, and I don't care about playing the economy).

Thanks for all of the advice, guys. As it turns out I can't find my old Cryptic account info, so I'll need to make a new Arc account anyway. Hopefully I'll see you out there.