Reliability of Steam's off-line mode
What are the general experiences with it? I've only tried it once, on one game, and it did work, but I am used to hearing that it is very unreliable and very unlikely to work in most cases.
Obviously, I am not asking about multiplayer games.
Solution 1:
Steam Offline mode has been improved during the last year of Steam developments. You shouldn't have any issues while playing offline, but I can give you some advice and suggestions:
- Games that use Cloud features, played offline, will not allow you to get old savegames.
- Achievements will not work offline (it seems at least Can the Steam achievements be gained also offline?).
- Leaderboards, if implemented by the game, will not work offline.
In addition to this, if you plan to play offline for long time I suggest you to do this before you do go offline:
- Set for all game, using Properties, the option to not udpate automatically
- Then choose from the Steam menu, the command Go Offline
- Restart Steam
- Verify that all games you are interested to play start
Could be a bit paranoid but it will prevent bad surprises.
Solution 2:
It works good for every game able to play offline, but make sure you activate it before you go for a trip without internet.
Because 90% of times, it will work, detect that no connection, and propose you the offline mode. But the remaining 10%, it will consider it didn't connect correctly the last time it launched. And since you are not authenticated for him, it will refuse to open the offline mode, and ask you to connect to the Steam network.
So be sure to switch to offline mode before having to use it.
Solution 3:
Never had any problems playing:
- Counter Strike: Condition Zero
- Plants vs Zombies
- Left for Dead
so I don't think it's an issue