Offline mode- portal 2, steam validation rejected.

[Lunarctic❄]

I have a separate pc in a location with no internet access. I have played portal 2 a few times on the computer, while offline, obviously haven't updated anything since installing my games for offline play.

Today I tried playing portal 2 and got a steam validation error?

I've seen some fixes including changing a launch option for sv_lan 1 or something like that, but Im trying to avoid anything that would cause me being unable to play my games, and I'm unsure what that command would do to offline mode (if it would cause all my other games to no longer work offline) , as like I said I'm unable to connect to the internet without moving my computer hours away to fix the issue

[xSOSxHawkens]

And here we have one of the main reasons many people still pirate games...

As someone who still had a residence with dial-up only or cellular access untill ~2015 I can feel your pain.

Simple fact is that any game not multiplayer *should* be fully capable of being installed and played without internet. Period.

The only argument against that is "We have to protect our content!!!"

So let me get this straight, because of the bad behaviour of others, legitimate paying players must be punished with over-restrictive DRM for single player titles?...

And thus, many will simply pirate the titles after DRM has ben broken.



Personaly, if I were in your shoes I would see two options:

1) Unfortunantly to get your games working you WILL need internet. The Steam Offline Mode requires being re-logged in and validated on a regular basis (something like once every 30 days or so), you cant just set it offline and be good, it will eventualy fail and require re-authentication. If you dont plan to update the games themselves you can likely use some tethered cellular connection to get Steam online and authenticated, you should then be able to re-set it to offline mode and go from there.

2) If internet is not an option, period, you will likely have to get a crack for the games. As far as I am aware, and concerned, so long as you legally own a license to the games in question there is nothign illegal about running a cracked version. It falls into the same legality as copywrite-protected game ROMS used with emulators. If you have a legal copy of the software in question there is nothing that legally dictates how you acess it.

Steam/Valve as a company however, might frown on you attempting to access the sofware you have already purchased in ways that they dont deem "acceptable" in their TOS...

Proceed at own risk, and with caution, ESPECIALLY for VAC secured titles such as Portal...

[Lunarctic❄]

Ugh great. I was told when I asked about how steam offline worked, that is didn't require frequent verification.

The other games still work. Like subnautica and Ark survival evolved and rocket league. So dunno.

[xSOSxHawkens]

The longer you go the more games will fail to launch, eventually you will try to open steam one day and it will refuse to launch at all untill you log in, as if you have never logged in before...

Once you get logged in and out again you can set it to offline again for another few weeks without issue.

But, eventually, you will have to re-authenticate.


Is cellular tethering not an options? Even for a quick, temporary login?...

[xSOSxHawkens]

Sadly, support for things like offline functionality is going the way of the DoDo, and is on deaths doorstep. We live in an age where it is increasingly common for the average user to be ok with large amounts of intrusion into their lives by outside companies, and in the PC game world this is incresingly being targeted by the publishers who know that *most* people wont know or care about an always on DRM being present and requiring internet even for single palyer. For many they will never know the difference (untill the day the DRM fails).

The minority of people it does effect are basically told to deal with it or get with more modern tech that is capable of always on connections. Few people want to have to actualy deal with the questions about how right/wrong or intrusive it is. From the perspective of the game devs (and more specifically the game publishers) you are a small person, in a small number of people, who care, and they dont care that you care. Period.



There are a couple of devs/publishers that feel different. Might I suggest looking at Good old Games for DRM free titles that wont ever require any type of DRM jumps to get working.

[Lunarctic❄]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

The longer you go the more games will fail to launch, eventually you will try to open steam one day and it will refuse to launch at all untill you log in, as if you have never logged in before...

Once you get logged in and out again you can set it to offline again for another few weeks without issue.

But, eventually, you will have to re-authenticate.


Is cellular tethering not an options? Even for a quick, temporary login?...

I vaguely looked into it, but since I've never done it it was foreign to me. Plus I don't think that computer has a wireless adapter

[xSOSxHawkens]

Most cells will allow you to tether over a USB cable if you lack wifi. I know that all 5 of the phones my GF and I have had in recent years offerd full USB/Wifi tethering (HTC-530, LG K10, S3, S5, J3 Prime). The phones were spread on 3 carriers (tmobile, metro, boost) so you should be able to find similar functionality on either your own device, or a friends, easilly.

[Lunarctic❄]

Alright. I got cellcom, s7 edge phone. I'll look into it

[Lunarctic❄]

One last question, since I've never done tethering. I think I understand it after looking it up.

Once I connect it to my computer, does steam still auto update games, or itself? I don't have unlimited data so I fear once I connect it will completely drain my data plan.

Plus I think once I connect it, it'll notice some games aren't updated. And to my knowledge you can't play games offline unless they are up to date correct?

[xSOSxHawkens]

Steam will force any cleint updates when launched, those are generally small, in the 50-200MB range and shoould pose no problems.

Games on the other hand, they will also try to update. Once you get steam open you can go to the settngs and limit the download rate to something like 16k/s which is so slow that it will give you the time needed to pause any game updates without using any signifigant data.

Sadly, you are correct on the last bit. Any games with updates will be unplayable, regardless of the re-authentication, untill they are fully updated. So while you might get acess back to portal you might also have issues with other games.

[RedLightning]

I'm with the second poster in this thread.. OMG it is getting quite patheitic.

I know I bought something form X-Avaition .. and damn.. they have a countown 15 days till licence check and if you do not you have to fully activate the product.

This is taking it too far.

I've heard mixed reaction with Valve requiring online after a period of time offline.. what this has changed.

I have heard people that have NEVER logged back in after the initial activation.

Others I hear this horror story.

Pathetic. Simply pathetic.. Protect what.. when all the pirates get what they want when they want..

They are not protecting diddly squat, in my opinion, they are actually just harming themselves.

[Lunarctic❄]

Originally posted by RedLightning:

I'm with the second poster in this thread.. OMG it is getting quite patheitic.

I know I bought something form X-Avaition .. and damn.. they have a countown 15 days till licence check and if you do not you have to fully activate the product.

This is taking it too far.

I've heard mixed reaction with Valve requiring online after a period of time offline.. what this has changed.

I have heard people that have NEVER logged back in after the initial activation.

Others I hear this horror story.

Pathetic. Simply pathetic.. Protect what.. when all the pirates get what they want when they want..

They are not protecting diddly squat, in my opinion, they are actually just harming themselves.

Im hoping I wont have this issue with other games, Im hoping its only more restrictive with Valve made games, like tf2 and portal.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by RedLightning:

when all the pirates get what they want when they want..

They are not protecting diddly squat, in my opinion, they are actually just harming themselves.

Though I agree with you, to be fair, AC:O just finaly got cracked... The DRM (from the perspective of the companies) is only seen as a tempory solution. They all know it will be cracked eventually. The key (from their perspective) is to prevent it long enough that the majority of those people interested in the game finaly brak down and pay money for it. The hope being that those left after 1,3,6, or 9 months will be so few as to have minimal impact on both sales, and in the course of mutiplayer, competitivness an/or cheating.

meh :/

[Lunarctic❄]

ive never pirated a game, except one, to try it and then I paid for it after a few hours.

But the only reason I would possibly pirate a game are exclusives. Horizon Zero Dawn for example, I'm furious that I cant play that game. I don't own a console. I do not want a console. I will not buy a 400 dollar console to play 1 game. Once that game gets cracked I am downloading it.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by MoonFrost:

ive never pirated a game, except one, to try it and then I paid for it after a few hours.

But the only reason I would possibly pirate a game are exclusives. Horizon Zero Dawn for example, I'm furious that I cant play that game. I don't own a console. I do not want a console. I will not buy a 400 dollar console to play 1 game. Once that game gets cracked I am downloading it.

I am also not one to be a fan of piracy, one of my all time favorite games went under due to wide spread disc sharing because the programmers wanted to be nice and released it not only DRM and CD Key free, but included in the TOS a provision allowing each person to legally burn and use up to I think 5 other copies of the CD for use at LAN parties and mutiplayer meetings only. Ibviously, with nothing to enforce that provision, the game saw incredible sucess and reviews, with horrid actual sales and evetualy they went under...

Devs opensourced the game code before going under though. Game has been continuasly updated since then, and ironically is now available on steam. Freespace and Freespace 2 lol. Games meant to run on 1st gen pentiums (in mhz not ghz) that have ~1.2gb install footprints than can have over 15GB of modern patches slaped on lmao...

If only every game were like that...

[xSOSxHawkens]

Also odd, but awesome, my retail copy of Freespace and Freespace 2, installed on windows 98se on a pentium 233mhz MMX can play co-op and mulriplayer with my i7-4790k windows 10 system runngin Steam versions of retail copies of both ...

Would also be amazing to see more of that type of scalability and longevity...