Steam Account + Non-Steam Purchases

amapola76 · April 2020

I'm currently feuding with Steam over a charge, and I am determined not to make any more purchases through Steam until it's resolved.

(1) I normally pre-order every chapter, but I haven't pre-ordered Greymoor yet, though I would like to do so. Is it possible, when you bought your account through Steam, to purchase chapters *not* through Steam, and still have them link to the same account? I guess as a last resort I could always just wait until it's a chapter and purchase it through the crown store in-game (I'm assuming then this purchase would go directly to ZOS and bypass Steam?), but I always really like to get the pre-order rewards.

(2) I currently have ESO+, and it won't expire for a couple of months, but if necessary, is it possible to buy ESO+ other than through Steam when you have a Steam account?

Sorry, I honestly tried to figure this out on my own, but I couldn't quite make sense of it, so I wanted to see whether anyone here might have some advice.(Unless the advice is to let it go, because I'm much too stubborn for that!)

Taleof2Cities · April 2020

You can unlink Steam from ESO, @amapola76, by starting a ticket with Online Support.

Lelldorano · April 2020

To answer the question, yes you can buy Chapters, ESO+ and crowns from other sites if you have the steam version. In many regions it is much cheaper too.

jkmooney · May 2020

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

You can unlink Steam from ESO, @amapola76, by starting a ticket with Online Support.

Very good to know, thanks. A recent lawsuit against Valve has rattled my confidence in them and I've been looking for ways to separate games from my steam account where I can. Also starting to look at Parsec as an alternate streaming option.

FYI - The lawsuit involves a kid who bought games for his friends using his parent's credit card so he could play with them at a LAN party. Four years later, this kid is offered an opportunity to play professionally. Valve then discovers that one of those games he bought for his friends years ago had a VAC ban. Because it was traceable to him, Valve would not let him play in their major tournaments. The organization that offered him the opportunity ultimately had to give it to someone else and this kid's career ends before it can even begin.

More details here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXqz6gNqKWA

While I appreciate a lot of what Valve has done, especially for the Linux community, this greatly damages my opinion of them.

Sephyr · May 2020

I've seen success of people buying a cheap game key that's not tied to Steam and just redeeming it on their account, thus getting them off of Steam completely (But I strongly urge that this is a last ditch effort). Just asking them to do it usually resolves in the following tweet;

https://twitter.com/QuestJunkie/status/1143525807870087168

Not to mention that there is a thread trail of this very issue spanning from the last few years if you do a little searching. I've not met one person who has had their accounts successfully separated by asking CS to do it. If they exist, they're either super rare or they're under some kind of conditional period like this one here that states that they can't unlink Steam after seven days.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/418406/id-like-to-remove-steam-from-my-account

There's more evidence to the contrary of them actually fully separating the accounts. Mileage may vary, but there's plenty of threads and @AlienatedGoat (sorry for the ping, just giving credit where it's due) has the best advice in several threads regarding this. This dude saved my entire ESO life.

jkmooney · May 2020

If I get the Greymore update for PC instead of steam, can I just launch that without Steam and still have access to my ESO account details (Prior content, game progress, characters, etc)?

I like this game enough that it's worth purchasing the upgrade if only to unlink me from Valve's control.

indigorune · May 2020

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

You can unlink Steam from ESO, @amapola76, by starting a ticket with Online Support.

I tried to do this a while back and no one ever responded to my ticket.

huntgod_ESO · May 2020

jkmooney wrote: »

If I get the Greymore update for PC instead of steam, can I just launch that without Steam and still have access to my ESO account details (Prior content, game progress, characters, etc)?

I like this game enough that it's worth purchasing the upgrade if only to unlink me from Valve's control.

You used to be able to bypass the STEAM servers if you owned the game from both ZoS AND steam, they recently changed that and you can no longer bypass the steam launcher, even if you own the game standalone as well as from steam.

Sylvermynx · May 2020

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

jkmooney wrote: »

If I get the Greymore update for PC instead of steam, can I just launch that without Steam and still have access to my ESO account details (Prior content, game progress, characters, etc)?

I like this game enough that it's worth purchasing the upgrade if only to unlink me from Valve's control.

You used to be able to bypass the STEAM servers if you owned the game from both ZoS AND steam, they recently changed that and you can no longer bypass the steam launcher, even if you own the game standalone as well as from steam.

I'm not finding that to be the case. I started two years ago with steam, had horrible issues with connection (steam didn't like my satellite I guess), bought the game again through the ZOS store, and have never launched with steam again.

indigorune · May 2020

Sylvermynx wrote: »

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

jkmooney wrote: »

If I get the Greymore update for PC instead of steam, can I just launch that without Steam and still have access to my ESO account details (Prior content, game progress, characters, etc)?

I like this game enough that it's worth purchasing the upgrade if only to unlink me from Valve's control.

You used to be able to bypass the STEAM servers if you owned the game from both ZoS AND steam, they recently changed that and you can no longer bypass the steam launcher, even if you own the game standalone as well as from steam.

I'm not finding that to be the case. I started two years ago with steam, had horrible issues with connection (steam didn't like my satellite I guess), bought the game again through the ZOS store, and have never launched with steam again.

If you buy the game through ZOS, can you still use your login that you created via Steam? If so, I will probably be doing that next time there is a sale.

Sylvermynx · May 2020

n0tthesun wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

jkmooney wrote: »

If I get the Greymore update for PC instead of steam, can I just launch that without Steam and still have access to my ESO account details (Prior content, game progress, characters, etc)?

I like this game enough that it's worth purchasing the upgrade if only to unlink me from Valve's control.

You used to be able to bypass the STEAM servers if you owned the game from both ZoS AND steam, they recently changed that and you can no longer bypass the steam launcher, even if you own the game standalone as well as from steam.

I'm not finding that to be the case. I started two years ago with steam, had horrible issues with connection (steam didn't like my satellite I guess), bought the game again through the ZOS store, and have never launched with steam again.

If you buy the game through ZOS, can you still use your login that you created via Steam? If so, I will probably be doing that
next time there is a sale.

I'm using my same login I set up on steam originally, yes, on my main account. My second account was created late in 2018, long after I was done with steam.

Now if only I could detach Skyrim from steam *sigh*.

indigorune · May 2020

Sylvermynx wrote: »

n0tthesun wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

jkmooney wrote: »

If I get the Greymore update for PC instead of steam, can I just launch that without Steam and still have access to my ESO account details (Prior content, game progress, characters, etc)?

I like this game enough that it's worth purchasing the upgrade if only to unlink me from Valve's control.

You used to be able to bypass the STEAM servers if you owned the game from both ZoS AND steam, they recently changed that and you can no longer bypass the steam launcher, even if you own the game standalone as well as from steam.

I'm not finding that to be the case. I started two years ago with steam, had horrible issues with connection (steam didn't like my satellite I guess), bought the game again through the ZOS store, and have never launched with steam again.

If you buy the game through ZOS, can you still use your login that you created via Steam? If so, I will probably be doing that next time there is a sale.

I'm using my same login I set up on steam originally, yes, on my main account. My second account was created late in 2018, long after I was done with steam.

Now if only I could detach Skyrim from steam *sigh*.

Nice! Thanks for the info. I have way too many games on steam to let my account go now, but still don't like how it feels like i'm renting games I paid for.

It's too bad ZOS just did a sale on ESO. Hopefully another comes around soon. Now I'm excited to play outside of the steam platform.

Linaleah · May 2020

mostly been answered already.

but I guess to confirm. if you buy expansions outside of steam and redeem their codes on ESO account side (you DO need to have an ESO web account associated with your steam game for this) - you can play them just fine. however, buying expansion outside of steam while giving you acess to it within the game - STILL requires that you log into the game through steam

jkmooney · May 2020

Ok, just to be clear. If I buy the base game from ESO (outside of Steam) and log into it with my current account, I'll have access to all my characters, my ESO+, and all the DLC I currently have on Steam?

amapola76 · May 2020

Just to follow up, I wasn't actually trying to unlink my account from Steam. I'm not worried about continuing to log in through Steam, I just don't want to give them any more money than I already have. As it turned out, it was very simple; I just purchased the upgrade through this very website, and was not required to go through Steam to do so. No problems at all, just had to be logged into to my ESO account on this site, which I already was because of the forum.