Can some one explain steam to me

[imported_Indohottie]

What is a Steam Account? Does it work like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and City of Heroes/Villains?

thanks

 

[Lonyo]

Steam is a program.
You log into your Steam account and then it finds what games your account has bought, and makes them available to download.
You can then select the games to play through Steam, and it will start them up, and then display a list of servers, and provide any updates the games need.
A developer could publish their game through Steam no matter what engine or anything else is uses.

Steam is basically a distribution platform for games.

 

[imported_Indohottie]

if you buy a copy of Half life 2 for example in a store.. can you create a steam account and then play it online?

Can you play games purchased on steam offline?

 

[pontifex]

yes
oh wait, i dunno. my dsl is always connected so i'm not sure.

 

[Runes911]

Originally posted by: Indohottie
if you buy a copy of Half life 2 for example in a store.. can you create a steam account and then play it online?

Can you play games purchased on steam offline?

Yes.
Yes, though I hear some have problems with offline mode. YMMV

 

[mezrah]

Originally posted by: Runes911

Originally posted by: Indohottie
if you buy a copy of Half life 2 for example in a store.. can you create a steam account and then play it online?

Can you play games purchased on steam offline?

Yes.
Yes, though I hear some have problems with offline mode. YMMV

Yep...and I've never had a problem playing offline. In the beginning, steam was a big POS...now I think it's great. I get a new computer, I just install steam and let it install all of my half life and half life 2 based games. Sure it takes a few hours, but just set it up before you go to work, and when you get home it is ready to go.

 

[Mavrick007]

Playing offline can give you problems sometimes. When I tried to play CS:S offline on our LAN, it would not authenticate me until we connected to the internet and then we could turn off the internet and continue playing.