actions to fight steam...

[peacemaker]

If you go into steam, and have no internet connection, you'll just get a bigwindow that says 'no internet connection'. Wait until that loads, then go to offline mode.

[Boohugh]

If you go into steam, and have no internet connection, you'll just get a bigwindow that says 'no internet connection'. Wait until that loads, then go to offline mode.

In theory, yes. In practice, if you aren't connected to any network then you will get that pop-up and Steam will load up into offline mode fine. The problem comes when you are connected to a network but not the internet, then Steam (for me at least) just tries to update itself but as it has no internet connection just gets stuck on 0% . The solution is obviously to just disconnect from the network and try again but it is slightly annoying and would be nice if Valve addressed the issue.

Having said that, Steam seems fine to me and a good answer to piracy (better than the intrusive DRM you get with some games at least). It could use a few improvements (e.g. the option of whether to install a patch or not) but overall I find the automatic patching better than having to search for download links, etc.