I feel Deceived Re: How "Offline" This Game Is

[CalPolyFan]

I was told I could play Cities Skylines offline, without an internet connection I believe, and that's simply not true.

Sim City 4 provided a disk that you could hold onto and install on your computer. You can go and download updates if you want to, but on several occasions now I can't even launch CSL without being online thanks to the wonders of Steam.

I know there is a "play offline" option, but it doesn't work all the time, especially it appears when the game wants to get yet another "update" from Steam, which to me seems like a thinly veiled attempt to have people always connected to Steam in what I can only surmise is an attempt at avoiding some small amount of piracy.

To me this is rather insulting and misleading, because I am a person who chooses not to be connected to the internet for a number of reasons most of the time, and I was told I was buying a game that I could play offline regularly, and this simply is not true at this point in time.

I'd like a disk provided, don't really care if it's against Steam policy, I am not able to consistenly run this game offline, as per the promise made.

 

[Zakath]

I'd hazard a guess that a disk isn't an option as Steamworks is most likely used for everything from patching to the workshop and any other netcode.

Set steam to offline, unplug your internet, and it should actually run nicely.

 

[bpbill]

A disk may not be an option but I would very much doubt that has anything to do with Steam. Many games on Steam have an option to be bought in a bricks and mortar store providing a disk but require Steam to use.

 

[Shiggs]

I was told I could play Cities Skylines offline, without an internet connection I believe, and that's simply not true.

Sim City 4 provided a disk that you could hold onto and install on your computer. You can go and download updates if you want to, but on several occasions now I can't even launch CSL without being online thanks to the wonders of Steam.

I know there is a "play offline" option, but it doesn't work all the time, especially it appears when the game wants to get yet another "update" from Steam, which to me seems like a thinly veiled attempt to have people always connected to Steam in what I can only surmise is an attempt at avoiding some small amount of piracy.

To me this is rather insulting and misleading, because I am a person who chooses not to be connected to the internet for a number of reasons most of the time, and I was told I was buying a game that I could play offline regularly, and this simply is not true at this point in time.

I'd like a disk provided, don't really care if it's against Steam policy, I am not able to consistenly run this game offline, as per the promise made.

You literally could not be more wrong. I just did a test, physically disconnected my cable internet. Clicked on cities skylines and after about 20 seconds steam gave me a message that the steam cloud could not be accessed and then it prompted me to play the game offline. I did not change any settings or do anything else other than what I said.

I have no idea what you have smoked to come to this conclusion but please, send me some.

 

[Brazilian Joe]

It's solely distributed on Steam and was widely advertised as such.

There's no basis to 'feel deceived' because it's the only way to get the game. Gameplay is single player and you can save your games locally. Like any other game you must be online to download patches and custom content, it just happens to be via Steam instead of a packaged .exe installer for the patches and digging a forum for mods.

It's arguably much better than that.

Like already said, Steam has an offline mode. While offline you can play to your heart's content, but you must go online to update. Just like 100% of the other games out there.

If turning steam offline makes the game unplayable, it's a bug.

 

[slornie]

I know there is a "play offline" option, but it doesn't work all the time, especially it appears when the game wants to get yet another "update" from Steam, which to me seems like a thinly veiled attempt to have people always connected to Steam in what I can only surmise is an attempt at avoiding some small amount of piracy.

If you're having trouble getting the game to launch in offline mode because it's anticipating a patch; have you tried turning off automatic updating for Skylines in the game settings? You can get to this by right clicking on the game in your Steam library, selecting Properties and then looking on the Updates tab.

I'd like a disk provided, don't really care if it's against Steam policy, I am not able to consistenly run this game offline, as per the promise made.

Whether or not Paradox are willing or able to provide you with a physical copy of the game on disk, it will still be reliant on Steam so I don't really see the point in asking for one. The game is heavily integrated into Steam's architecture with the workshop and cloud save functionality etc (both of which are entirely optional to use, of course). I can't say I've ever had a problem with Steam's offline mode, and I gather it's become a lot more reliable than it used to be (in terms of staying in offline mode without needing to reconfirm account credentials.)

 

[Tim Bo]

Yep I had internetz go down in my locale for a good few hours the other day. Booted up Steam offline and loaded CS no problem - played away with no issues.

It's as offline as any game these days. Only need to go online if you want patches, and that won't take more than 5 minutes every 10 days or so.

 

[JerkyJerry]

I have no idea what you have smoked to come to this conclusion but please, send me some.

Don't bogart that Shiggs! Pass it around

 

[jamiechi]

You have to disable the Cloud save option in Steam to play offline.
I was without internet for over a year, and was able to play all of my Steam games (that were already on my computer) during that time without problems.

 

[ggjono]

Oh and it must be said if you think CO is giving you all those updates, nearly daily personally, its not its the mods being updated. They show as an update but have a workshop banner above, if you don't like that then don't use the workshop mods!

 

[Tsouks]

Yesterday my connection was down for 2.5 hours. I played without any issues at all.

 

[Ingtar]

If your save game was on the Steam Cloud, which I believe it is by default, that is likely why you have to connect. Simply, connect, turn off the save to Steam cloud, and save. Then you can access it off-line for about 30 days at a time. I believe that Steam requires a connection every so often on its own.