It was in direct relation to the previous post about Children of the Nile, whose value as a bargain hinged on the answer to the question.
Thanks for taking the time.
Andrew
1602
Sorry, I assumed that was some kind of lead-in to a rant on the Nature Of Ownership.
I haven’t tried it, but Steam has an offline mode (that you have to be online to activate?).
You have to run the game at least once when you’re online before it’ll work offline (presumably so it can create some kind of local authorization token). Otherwise it should work if you’re offline to begin with, though there are other things that might prevent offline mode from working properly, like if a client or game patch was still pending.
And to bring things back on-topic, Lost Planet is half-price on Steam right now. I recall hearing that the PC version was kinda glitchy, though.
If the publishers of those other media had their way, you wouldn’t be able to resell their products either.
Uh, anyway, back on-topic… Uh… Shit, I got nothing.
Brilliant. I’ll be picking up Children immediately.
Moore
1606
Yeah, the offline thing works fine, you basically just need to let steam know before you are going to be away from the internet and you are all set.
The key with offline mode is that you need to physically remove the ethernet cable from your machine for it to work properly. Otherwise, if your internet provider, or router is just going to be down and unable to connect, Steam will keep trying to connect and when it can’t connect, it won’t allow offline mode next time either. So any time you know your internet is definitely down, and you were able to connect to Steam fine the last time your machine was on, then just disconnect your ethernet cable and you’ll be fine. Offline mode should come on, and you should still be able to play Steam games.
Moore
1608
huh? I use wifi, but I dont touch the wifi switch and I can put it in offline mode and leave it there forever. I even forgot it was offline and tried to hit the store - no dice, had to switch it back to online mode. fully connected to the net the whole time (I was just checking to see how it worked)
Ah. I don’t know about wifi, since I’ve never had a wifi connection. However, there have been plenty of times when my ISP has been down, or my router is acting up, and in all those cases, Offline mode does not even show up as an option unless I disconnect my ethernet cord before I try to start Steam. If I try to start Steam while the net is down, it’s unable to connect, and at that point, disconnecting the ethernet cord doesn’t do any good either, since the last thing Steam remembers is “I wasn’t able to connect and verify, therefore I can’t let you have access to Offline mode”.
Sounds like if Steam gets kicked back early enough (by a dead port / no device) then it goes to offline mode. Maybe there is a way in Windows to “disconnect” your landline service without having to crawl under your computer.
You could try right-clicking your LAN icon and clicking “disable”? I don’t have a Steam account so I don’t have any way to see if that would be sufficient.
Tciecka
1612
Supreme Commander Gold at Target, Brick and Mortar store in California, MD. There were 2 copies left on a clearance rack when I was there. It might be at other locations.
$15, original game and expansion. It’s been Red Tagged, so the price will probably drop again in the near future. I checked and the item isn’t listed on Target.com anymore. A search pulls up the individual PC releases.
It’s actually only $11 on Amazon. Note that this is NOT the recent LP Colonies Edition, which has some extra content.
Damn, I was just at Target yesterday, but they didn’t have Supreme Commander Gold on clearance.
Moore
1614
Ah that could be true. My udnertsanding of offline mode is it is for planned lack of access. Like, I’m leaving the house, no more wifi, you tell steam and you can play your games on the plane. I didnt know you could tell it to work offline at all if you were ALREADY offline.
Forged Alliance didn’t add a compelling single-player experience or anything, did it?
Moore
1616
My target barely has any pc games, and the row reeks of having a clearance rack… somewhere… but I can never find it. for console stuff it is at the end of each row… the Pc game row ends with… housewares? or something? very weird.
The clearance rack for PC games can be anywhere near electronics of any kind. It might be with the videogames. It might be near the iPods. It might even be with the books. Just keep wandering around near anything that has anything to do with entertainment that isn’t toys and you’ll eventually stumble onto it.
I can confirm the Forged Alliance sighting at my target. $14.98 was too much for me to pay though. I just don’t have time for it even at that price.
Targets around here always put their clearance on end-caps facing the wall, usually near corners. I still can’t ever find something good, though.
I found it at my Target, but it was still at 20.98 (at least per the label)–I didn’t feel like picking it up for that much.
Shadari
1620
What a bunch of cheap bastards!
