A question about Offline mode

[Aree Soothsayer]

Been looking up stuff about OM and it says to switch to offline mode you have to be online. Is this true? If the net goes down for repairs for hours or days will my single player games be unplayable because I can't switch to offline mode?

[Zekiran]

You have to BE online with Steam running, to tell Steam to go offline, that is correct.

If your internet goes down you can't play online games *anyway*.

But yes, that's a problem for some games because if you make the mistake of forgetting to switch it'll still try and launch online. This is painful for anyone with an old XP machine as a backup, like I have, and I cannot launch steam while the internet is connected on that laptop for fear it'll update and I'll never be able to launch anything at all any more with it.

You should be able to turn steam offline, however, if you need to. But just remember some games *require* a connection to start, and some *require* an online connection. They have to be run with it online.

[Aree Soothsayer]

Thanks

[Blargo]

One thing to add:
If you don't have any internet connection and launch Steam, it will give you the option to start in offline mode after attempting to connect.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by Dxpress:

One thing to add:
If you don't have any internet connection and launch Steam, it will give you the option to start in offline mode after attempting to connect.

^^

That's why I can still successfully launch on that old 32 bit system: offline for real.

I used to have problems with Steam *TRYING* so very, very hard to launch online, but my internet connection was absolutely crap, and didn't work well enough - but it was *detected* so steam kept trying. Very frustrating.

[Phantom]

You need to have a connection to be logged in and have the credentials stored.

Thenceforth, you can do all of the stuff mentioned above.

[Aree Soothsayer]

Is there a time limit. I remember reading a year or so ago that it would only work for a week or two then stop requiring you to go online.

[Blargo]

Originally posted by Aree Soothsayer:

Is there a time limit. I remember reading a year or so ago that it would only work for a week or two then stop requiring you to go online.

I've never heard of such a limit.
I'd hope that's not actually a thing.

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Dxpress:

Originally posted by Aree Soothsayer:

Is there a time limit. I remember reading a year or so ago that it would only work for a week or two then stop requiring you to go online.

I've never heard of such a limit.
I'd hope that's not actually a thing.

There used to be 2 week time-limit, which was probably a bug.

A Valve employee said it was fixed ages ago.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/864969953572102601/#c864969953730401285

I'm not sure if that is still a thing that exists today.

[Blargo]

Originally posted by Robin3sk:

Originally posted by Dxpress:

I've never heard of such a limit.
I'd hope that's not actually a thing.

There used to be 2 week time-limit, which was probably a bug.

A Valve employee said it was fixed ages ago.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/864969953572102601/#c864969953730401285

I'm not sure if that is still a thing that exists today.

Ah, good to know.

[The Sarge]

Not sure if this is "game specific" but I often shut down my internet connection and play "offline".
I got fed up with being disconnected from the Steam server and losing everything that I'd got in game because of it. I've never had a problem playing offline, but as I've said, it could be different with other games.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by The Sarge:

Not sure if this is "game specific" but I often shut down my internet connection and play "offline".
I got fed up with being disconnected from the Steam server and losing everything that I'd got in game because of it. I've never had a problem playing offline, but as I've said, it could be different with other games.

I'd suggest this is a cloud save issue? I turn that off in most games that offer it because the cloud can be very... vapid at times. >_>

[The Sarge]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Originally posted by The Sarge:

Not sure if this is "game specific" but I often shut down my internet connection and play "offline".
I got fed up with being disconnected from the Steam server and losing everything that I'd got in game because of it. I've never had a problem playing offline, but as I've said, it could be different with other games.

I'd suggest this is a cloud save issue? I turn that off in most games that offer it because the cloud can be very... vapid at times. >_>

I haven't used the cloud for a very long time and I always have it disabled because I manually save my files, but it doesn't stop me from still getting disconnected from the steam server, so I can't see that being the issue in my case.