Since when could you earn achievements in offline mode?

[jeffy559]

I'm asking because I earned some of Sonic CD and Deus Ex: Human Revolution achievements while I had Steam in offline mode. I had no internet connection at all when this happened and it clearly said "Offline mode". If this is some weird bug, please keep it. If this is a feature...I really need to keep up with Steam updates, heh. Oh, just in case anyone wants to know, no I don't have the latest Steam Beta running.

[jmccaskey]

If you've previously run the game while online (or even just viewed the details view for it) and Steam thus knows about the achievement schema for the game, then you'll get achievements when offline. When you go back online this will be reported to the backend and should show on your profile.

[Epsilon]

This may be a daft question, but why not grab the achievement schema at install time?

[Stevontoast]

Originally Posted by Epsilon

This may be a daft question, but why not grab the achievement schema at install time?

You don't need to be online to install a game.

[damiangerous]

Originally Posted by Stevontoast

You don't need to be online to install a game.

How does it verify your key?

[MoonUNit]

Originally Posted by Stevontoast

You don't need to be online to install a game.

I've always had to go online to activate a game, even one I have the cds for.

@jmccaskey: Thanks for the info. That's pretty cool.

[Stevontoast]

Originally Posted by damiangerous

How does it verify your key?

Funny, I've installed a game while being offline...
Did it with Sonic Generations.

[bayek]

Originally Posted by Epsilon

This may be a daft question, but why not grab the achievement schema at install time?

I think that's a pretty good question.

Also, I didn't know it was possible to get achievements while offline. That's pretty cool. Does Steam also track a game's time played while in offline mode?

[damiangerous]

Originally Posted by Stevontoast

Funny, I've installed a game while being offline...
Did it with Sonic Generations.

I'm not sure why my question was "funny", but ok. I'd still like to know how it validates your key offline. There has to be something more than an internal checksum going on or else Steam would be the easiest platform for piracy ever. All you would have to do is firewall Steam from the internet and just use keys you "find" online. Clearly that isn't the case.

[BadBeat]

Originally Posted by jmccaskey

If you've previously run the game while online (or even just viewed the details view for it) and Steam thus knows about the achievement schema for the game, then you'll get achievements when offline. When you go back online this will be reported to the backend and should show on your profile.

This is actually something I always wondered about (and the reason I never played my steam games whenever steam goes down.) Good information to know.

[Sifer2]

Well the downside I think is it wont say what date you unlocked them if you did it offline. But i'm not sure about that since have not tried it in a while.

Also some games have achievements stored server side and you can't unlock them offline. But yeah the offline thing is actually why Steam Achievement Manager works.

[Dryk]

Originally Posted by jmccaskey

If you've previously run the game while online (or even just viewed the details view for it) and Steam thus knows about the achievement schema for the game, then you'll get achievements when offline. When you go back online this will be reported to the backend and should show on your profile.

Since when? I remember missing out on achievements a year or so ago because the game wasn't set up to report them once it went back online... ever since then I've been afraid to achieve things offline <.<

[ThisLegend]

More importantly, when will we be able to disable the damn achievement pop ups in game? I disable community (or play offline) for some games already becuase friends pop ups get in the way so much.

[NoBridges]

lol if only offline mode worked.

[arienh4]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

But yeah the offline thing is actually why Steam Achievement Manager works.

That's not true. SAM uses impersonates the game and uses the Steamworks API to send the same signals to Steam that the game would send. At least last time I worked with that API it did not expose the necessary functions in offline mode. I'm guessing this was changed recently.