Dev wrote on Jul 18, 2011, 16:15:

Dades wrote on Jul 18, 2011, 11:46:

CJ_Parker wrote on Jul 18, 2011, 11:41:
But the geniuses at Valve, in their infinite wisdom, require that you enter offline mode while being online, so I was locked out of all my games. Why the fuck would I ever pay full price for service like that?

If you wait for the connection to the time out then it automatically enters offline mode. This is never explained of course because Steam's UI and documentation was drawn up by five year olds.

BTW, this is easy enough to test. Unplug network cable and run steam. See if you can play your games offline that way. In most cases you should be able to play offline WITHOUT being online to set the mode.