it takes me 3 mins to save. Is that just me?

[Flinkebeinchen]

Hmm, it takes me around 31s to load a 1400star-MID-game when I start DW:Shadows (with DW:Extended Mod) and around 8s to save it. (just timed it). Maybe your Antivirus slows you down? I use Norton Internet Security.

My System:
CPU: i5-2500k
RAM: Corsair 8GB DDR3(1600)
HDD: 2TB Seagate ST2000DL003
I also have a SDD but I don't use it for DW;Load/Save

Regarding Steam, I like to have all my Games in one place. With special offers you can save some money. I love the Steam Cloud (you can access your Saves from anywhere), it helped me alot when my Motherboard burned my whole HDD back in Oct 2011. I can stay in touch with my friends while playing games, I even put non-Steam Games on my list. With Steamworks you can easily have your Mods updated. I like the feature to get quickly in a friends game just by one click.

Well on the negative side, you must to be online to use these features.

[Shark7]

It's the whole 'mut be online thing' that I don't like about it. There are days when I don't even turn my PC on, much less go on the internet. And I just don't like to change anymore, guess I'm getting old...and grumpy. Well in all honesty, I've always been grumpy. [:'(] [;)]

[Anthropoid]

I do agree that _more options_ is the best thing for we gamers. The fact that some publishers cut deals with Steam so that their games are only available to players who have a Steam account (else those who will engage in piracy) is in my opinion somewhat . . . erm . . . annoying. It takes options away from the consumer and I don't see that as a 'good thing.' But then, I cannot blame Valve if they want to improve their bottom line by offering special deals to publishers like Bethesda to make their games Steam exclusive; nor can I blame a publisher like Bethesda for taking advantage of the probably insanely good deal they were given by Valve to make Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas Steam exclusive. I don't like it, but I can't blame either one of them for going for the higher profits.