Steam-related question

[boomyak]

just wondering if anyone who's actually bought anything off of steam so far could answer a couple of quick questions for me

if you buy off steam, do you need to log into steam everytime you wish to play? or after it downloads you can just put a shortcut on your desktop?


I own several computers, so if i buy off steam, will i be able to log in under the same account (at different times obviously) on all of my comps to install spawn copies of say CS:S so that i can LAN within myself?

are there any REAL limits to steam other than the lack of cardboard and plastic?

 

[boomyak]

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuump

 

[Glo]

erm
isnt there a forum for this?

anyway you need steam running in order to play the game on multiplayer , though putting a desktop shortcut is possible

actually is there a multiplayer?

 

[oldagerocker]

i doubt you can lan with yourself... you;'d need friends over and they should have their own accounts.

what do you mean by REAL limits?

If you buy at store you'd have to log in to play online, the offline mod will/should only work on one computer at a time.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

if you buy off steam, do you need to log into steam everytime you wish to play? or after it downloads you can just put a shortcut on your desktop?

regardless of how u buy ur copy, ur going to have to use Steam in one way or another.
Steam has an "offline" mode so in case u are worried about not being able to play without an internet connection, u can get that out of ur head.

and as pointed out, u can only be logged on in Steam at one computer at any time.
u cannot log onto Steam using multiple PC's.

 

[boomyak]

thx glo, so i take it you'd need steam running to run MP anyways (even with retail version) which is okay

and the MP is CS:S

oldagerocker most other games i have i intall spawn copies all the time, i don't believe there's anything illegal or imoral with it if they're all my machines. i lose my serial # for windows XP all the time, and i just call them and they give me a new one, i told them i was putting it on 4 different computers and they didn't care, so i'd hope valve doesn't

and that is what i meant by "real" limits, like anything functionally different from steam vs. retail

 

[boomyak]

i wasn't planning on logging into more than one steam account at once, but i want to be able to use the same account to run a LAN, D3 and farcry let me, haven't encountered too many titles that didn't.

but if what y'all are saying is that the ONLY way to get to anything MP related, it's through steam

and freeman, all my comps are routed an internet connection, so that's not presicely what i was worrying about, moreover i'm just lazy and don't wanna have to log in just to play single player, but yes i do faintly remember now hearing something about an offline mode, i guess the question (perhaps nobody knows yet) is if you can LAN MP without logging into steam

 

[Yombi]

I tried this the other day with CS: S on my lan. Signed in to my steam account on both computers and started up CSS, I was able to do lan games. Didn't bother trying going into a internet game since i assumed i couldn't, but looks like you can do lan with the same steam account. Not sure if this will change though.

 

[boomyak]

that's interesting, so you logged into the same account at the same time on 2 computers. have you bought anything off steam yet? because i gather that to login there must be contact with the master server, but if you haven't paid anything yet, then maybe steam doesn't care who uses basically a restricted guest account

 

[Yombi]

that's interesting, so you logged into the same account at the same time on 2 computers. have you bought anything off steam yet? because i gather that to login there must be contact with the master server, but if you haven't paid anything yet, then maybe steam doesn't care who uses basically a restricted guest account

? i bought CSCZ retail then entered my key into steam you dont need to pay for CSS beta (well you get it if you got CSCZ). CSS Beta had to be downloaded from steam.

 

[boomyak]

ahhh, how easily i forget the chronology of these events, only the beta is out right now, i think i got caught up in the emotion of the cs:s coming next week

but wait a minute, does that mean that if you just gave me your password, i could login to your steam account and download CS:S to my computer (along with that marvelous stress test)?

 

[Chris D]

Steam related questions belong in the Steam forum.

Thanks