You dont need to be 'signed in to steam' to do any of this and your purchase from the eso store is not in any way linked to your steam account.

If you have acquired the game initially via steam you are flagged as a 'steam user' but there is no 'steam version' of the game.

Everything about your game is tied to your ESO account - all your purchases/dlc/crowns etc etc - and NOT steam.

Steam is just a purchasing and delivery platform.

What buying the base game from the eso store does is remove the need for an additional layer of authentication via the steam servers at login.

ADarklore wrote: »

a simple $10 solution.

As simple as it is, and whether it costs $1, $10 or $10000, it's still PAYING EXTRA for managing around an inacceptable bug. As such, it's very questionable.

It's indeed a ZOS compatibility issue. Some people may be unaware that this isn't the first MMO to link authentication to Steam, allowing for autologin based on your Steam credentials. Many games even allow you to use Steam as your account, bypassing the account creation system altogether. Yet none of them have the problems that plague ESO or the random downtime when the game itself is up as well as the Steam community. ZOS needs to maintain the bridge that allows Steam players to connect to their login servers and when this process is broken you end up with the inability to log in for Steam users independent of the game. If it was just their login servers going down, no one would be able to log in.

It's specifically the connecting process between Steam and ZOS that goes down. Given that other linked MMOs still function on Steam, it's not like Steam as a whole is suddenly unable to use linked services. Steam can clearly call out, as it does with other linked games during these periods of downtime, yet the call isn't being picked up on ZOS's end or it would have connected. For a min-max company like ZOS, who repeatedly puts in the bare minimum to support the product or handle issues, it's not surprising that they put meager effort into ensuring their Steam login server is as well maintained as the master one.

With so many games on Steam using the same login feature without issue, it's a notable headline when a company as big as ZOS can't manage to keep it from happening with their own. Steam provides instructions on how to use their service and ZOS needs to better keep up their end of that. The Steam service doesn't change from game to game, what differs is how the developers of each game code and handle that service. Some clearly suck at it.

http://massivelyop.com/2018/06/18/elder-scrolls-online-players-politely-review-bomb-the-game-over-excessive-steam-login-woes/

Well thanks for giving this guide. But I hate the fact that I have to pay them AGAIN to fix their messed up login system.

Im feeling very ambivalent towards Steam. In many ways Steam is a fantastic convenient and awesome system to use for my game collections. But on the other hand there are quite a few serious issues that often ruins the fun. It primarily seems to stem from Valves idiotic design decisions. Most of these annoyances they could fix on a whim if they wanted to. Don't know about the ESO login issue through Steam, ZOS is silent as the grave about giving us an explanation, so who knows.

thorwyn wrote: »

I apologize for this case of serious thread necromancy, but there is one question left:

If you manage to detach your ESO account from steam, will you get the subscription prices and item discounts from the ESO site, or are you still linked to steam for that purpose? I'm asking because Steam has different prices for crowns or special sales than ESO.

If you start with steam and then buy the base game from eso store you are then free to make crown and other purchases from either.

Indigo_Shade wrote: »

Steam player, can also log in via normal launcher (most of the time).

Only if you purchased before a certain date in 2016.

OP isn't telling you to go and do this.

Stop the "ZOS should give it free reee". Of course they should, but they're not.
If you were looking for a way to play outside of steam, OP showed you how. Yeesh.

Jayman1000 wrote: »

PapaWeeb wrote: »

OP isn't telling you to go and do this.

Stop the "ZOS should give it free reee". Of course they should, but they're not.
If you were looking for a way to play outside of steam, OP showed you how. Yeesh.

So on one side you agree that zos should give it for free, yet on the other side you dont want people asking for it. that's just weird.

Glad it worked for you man.

I see Steam is acting up yet again. People should know that this workaround is still an option.

Find a cheap key, activate on your account, be free of the Steam issues forever.

Silent_Otto wrote: »

AlienatedGoat -> Thank You very much! I did it by investing only 7,95$ :-).

But I changed my mind and I will not buy ESO+ due to lack of any compensation from ZOS for this problems.

Awesome

Ausven wrote: »

Sorry for the Necromancerposting, does this still works? Any version (base, Summerset, Morrowind, the cheapest around) will suffice?

Aye it still works.

Just FYI they fixed this back in late 2018 early 2018, so if you did this BEFORE then, it will work, but if you did it after it will not work. I don't remember exactly when they changed it, just roughly when.