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Linking your Steam and ARC accounts

eazzieeazzie Member Posts: 3,979 Arc User
As this .... https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11370083-link-your-steam-and-arc-accounts!
as yet not appeared on the forum. A couple of questions.
1. Is it optional or mandatory?
2. If mandatory. What if you have your steam account on a different email address to that of ARC and vice versa. Will merging still work?
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments

  • gaevsmangaevsman Member Posts: 3,190 Arc User
    I won't link them, mostly because i'm the default "please uncle, brother, dad, can you play the "insert name of the event" for me?, can't do it because of vacation, tests, travel, or anything in between" guy my family goes to...
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  • szimszim Member Posts: 2,503 Arc User
    gaevsman wrote: »
    I won't link them, mostly because i'm the default "please uncle, brother, dad, can you play the "insert name of the event" for me?, can't do it because of vacation, tests, travel, or anything in between" guy my family goes to...

    I don't think we have a choice:
    This will only roll out to a small amount of users at first, but should be available to all users by February 20th. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be required to link your Steam Account to your Arc Account
  • gaevsmangaevsman Member Posts: 3,190 Arc User
    Then, i'll wont use steam anymore, i guess, just the standalone launcher :neutral:
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  • tigerariestigeraries Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    any incentive? like 500 free zen or ship claim token?
  • joshmauljoshmaul Member Posts: 519 Arc User
    tigeraries wrote: »
    any incentive? like 500 free zen or ship claim token?

    Gonna say probably not, because they would have said so in the announcement (maybe).

    And... I admit I'm confused. I run the game through Steam anyway, so... what exactly would this do? Not require me to put in my password?
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  • echattyechatty Member Posts: 5,913 Arc User
    Basically, yes. You won't need to put your information in every time.

    I don't use Steam for STO, just for other games so this doesn't apply to me.
    Now a LTS and loving it.
    Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
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  • vopopalvopopal Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    But still, it would be good to have a choice, even if we do use Steam, to either link or not.
  • littlesarbonnlittlesarbonn Member Posts: 486 Arc User
    So, will this cause problems for playing the game without Steam (if you normally play it through Steam)? There are times when I have to use another computer and just don't have Steam available.

    One other problem is that I do buy a lot of zen (not the problem) and whenever I try to buy it through Steam, I have huge problems, so I gave up on it years ago and just buy it directly from the Arc web site. If that's a problem with this new change, I would be very upset. So would their bean counters, too.
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  • inferiorityinferiority Member Posts: 3,929 Arc User
    Anyone with multiple game accounts probably will have issues with this.
    I know of a couple of "Let's Play" style video uploaders on Youtube that have their personal Lifetime account, but mainly use a F2P account to make their videos.
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  • phoenix841phoenix841 Member Posts: 486 Arc User
    gaevsman wrote: »
    I won't link them, mostly because i'm the default "please uncle, brother, dad, can you play the "insert name of the event" for me?, can't do it because of vacation, tests, travel, or anything in between" guy my family goes to...
    Yeah, this is a problem for me as well.
    vopopal wrote: »
    But still, it would be good to have a choice, even if we do use Steam, to either link or not.

    I agree. I actually rarely ever launch the game through Steam. Mostly because it serves me no purpose. There's zero benefit to it.
    This would actually be a nice benefit, particularly when I play over Steam Link. When your account password is random and saved in a password safe that auto-types it, that doesn't work well over Steam Link.

    However, I don't want to be prevented from logging into my STO account if I don't have Steam installed. We really need some more clarification on this new feature.
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  • starkymanstarkyman Member Posts: 158 Arc User
    I have been useing steam from the start and i've never had a problem with login's used ark for the starter pack thing hated it uninstalled it and never useing it again so if this move is mandatory then i won't be useing ark or play sto. You can't make me do anything i don't want to do.
  • echattyechatty Member Posts: 5,913 Arc User
    It's Arc, BTW, not ark. Ark is a big boat.

    I don't have problems with it myself.
    Now a LTS and loving it.
    Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
    I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything. :D
  • rattler2rattler2 Member Posts: 57,969 Community Moderator
    starkyman wrote: »
    I have been useing steam from the start and i've never had a problem with login's used ark for the starter pack thing hated it uninstalled it and never useing it again so if this move is mandatory then i won't be useing ark or play sto. You can't make me do anything i don't want to do.

    Honestly it sounds to me like the only thing its doing is recognizing the account. Not going through Arc to load the game. You can still run through Steam, its just going to skip the password step of the launcher after linking Steam and Arc.

    At least that's what I'm getting.

    And I only keep Arc around for promo codes. Other than that I never fire it up.
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  • nimbullnimbull Member Posts: 1,564 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    I'm not really interested in tying my Steam account to my PWE account. I'm fine with just entering a user name and password.

    As for the Arc client itself. I've stopped using that after it crapped out and required me to reinstall just to get it functional again on Windows. I won't be using that ever again especially since Steam just works and runs Windows games under Linux with Proton.
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  • kdfmule#3507 kdfmule Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    What I wonder is how this will affect people with more than one account. I have a really good friend who has 3, but only 1 Steam account. So what, they will lose their other accounts? Not sure them "requiring" this is the best way to go. Make it an option, sure. But mandatory...?
  • echattyechatty Member Posts: 5,913 Arc User
    I'd say they could launch the game under their main acct and if they want to switch accts, just sign out instead of exiting, then put the alt acct into the text fields. It's how I swap between around six accts on my computer. I also don't use Steam. The Arc client works fine for me.
    Now a LTS and loving it.
    Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
    I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything. :D
  • jexsamxjexsamx Member Posts: 2,802 Arc User
    Why is this being required now?
  • gseedstrike1gseedstrike1 Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    While I wouldn't mind linking my Arc and Steam accounts I don't have STO installed through steam, so I'm not going to install a second copy of the game just to link the accounts. Unless they have a way to link to Steam from Arc this is utterly useless to me.
  • avoozuulavoozuul Member Posts: 3,196 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    tigeraries wrote: »
    any incentive? like 500 free zen or ship claim token?
    Too bad arc got rid of arc quests without warning and after proposed "improvements" which never happened.

  • djf021djf021 Member Posts: 1,378 Arc User
    I use Steam only. I'm not sure I understand the issue, I only log in once to play anyway. Is my experience due to using Steam? I'm confused.
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  • sthe91sthe91 Member Posts: 5,403 Arc User
    They really need to make an official thread for this. I am also confused. I have two accounts, the Arc account (I use for posting on the forums and not much else) and a Steam account that I really do not use. I just play through the launcher and do not play through Steam. Even their tweet was more confusing than the blog post which was somewhat clearer.
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  • aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
    Its about time... I always forget to login via Steam launcher and none of my game time shows on Steam and more importantly the Steam wallet does not load and I'm really tired of the bull TRIBBLE with PayPal and trying to buy Zen via Arc.
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  • edrickvellorinedrickvellorin Member Posts: 346 Arc User
    I think the basic idea is to streamline the login process for Steam users. Logging into Steam will count as logging into the game's launcher too. (So, if you don't use Steam auto-login, you would only have to put your password in once, and if you use auto-login you wouldn't have to put in a password.)

    I imagine that if you aren't playing through Steam, then this won't affect you. I don't mind the feature, especially since the password field was never setup as the default control on the launcher, so sometimes I'd have to do my password twice because I forgot to click on the password field first. As I understand it, this is a change to the launcher used by Steam, rather then to the game itself. Not sure how launching STO through Arc client works as I've never tried it and I'm not sure if it would work with the Steam installed STO or want to install it's own copy.
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    I think the basic idea is to streamline the login process for Steam users. Logging into Steam will count as logging into the game's launcher too. (So, if you don't use Steam auto-login, you would only have to put your password in once, and if you use auto-login you wouldn't have to put in a password.)

    I imagine that if you aren't playing through Steam, then this won't affect you. I don't mind the feature, especially since the password field was never setup as the default control on the launcher, so sometimes I'd have to do my password twice because I forgot to click on the password field first. As I understand it, this is a change to the launcher used by Steam, rather then to the game itself. Not sure how launching STO through Arc client works as I've never tried it and I'm not sure if it would work with the Steam installed STO or want to install it's own copy.

    Arc is smart enough to detect an existing installation and use that.
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  • kdfmule#3507 kdfmule Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    echatty wrote: »
    I'd say they could launch the game under their main acct and if they want to switch accts, just sign out instead of exiting, then put the alt acct into the text fields. It's how I swap between around six accts on my computer. I also don't use Steam. The Arc client works fine for me.



    That works. I personally use Steam, but all I have to do is load the launcher, throw in a password, and I am in game. I still fail to understand why they are making this a requirement, as opposed to an option, however...
  • postagepaidpostagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User
    I originally got the game on steam but use the stand alone launcher as there's no real benefit for launching the launcher from a launcher other that tracking gametime, which will either be barely any or way too much depending on the title.

    Arc has been around for a fair while which begs the question Why do this now? What incentive or purpose is there for this?

    Not really seeing any real benefit to this other than the couple of seconds it takes to type in a password, unless somehow the game will be properly updated via steam instead of having to launch the launcher to get patches the way pretty much every launcher based title on steam works.
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    I wonder how it works if you play via Steam but don't have Arc installed.

    Guess I'll find out soon enough. :lol:
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  • nrobbiecnrobbiec Member Posts: 959 Arc User
    Arc? Never heard of it.
  • masssquaredmasssquared Member Posts: 20 Arc User
    "Please note that in order to unlink your accounts, you will need to contact Customer Support for assistance."

    CS may get bogged down at first... eventually you can unlink and resume as normal after?
  • djblack71#6265 djblack71 Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    HAHAHA, Damn. So I mainly use the loader which also activates Arc, which I only use to read the forums or announcements but I usually just use the main loader to load STO and play. Never had to reenter a password, Windows 10 does it for me on everything. Well I also use steam for a few other games like BDO and some solo games like Star Wars : Jedi the Fallen Order and the Castlevania Games. So I figured why not. What they don't tell you in the announcement is that if you already have an Arc account and you decide to add STO to your steam account to link them, you haft to patch everything all over again like you just installed the game new. That is anywhere from a couple to a few hours for me. I wish they would have stated more information on this linking so I would not have done it.
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