Steam won't connect: consequences of playing offline?

[SamGray]

I'm a new player using Steam, and I keep getting the "Steam client not found" message whenever I attempt to login. I notice from searching the forums that this seems to be common, but there's not a lot of information or a reliable fix. I've been trying to get online for about an hour to no avail.

What are the consequences of playing offline? I did establish and link a profile at te4.org, and I like the fact that it is designed to track everything I do. I gather that won't happen in offline mode, but will it ever sync back up? If I die or win in offline, will my te4 profile ever know? What about achievements?

[Effigy]

There is daily server downtime for an hour or so, and it looks like you were playing during that time.

As for the consequences, I'm not entirely sure but I think a character you create in offline mode will not be registered in the character vault. Achievements won't be logged in your online profile either. I think if you play a character offline that was created while online, the character progress and maybe achievements will be saved to your profile next time you play the character online.

[SamGray]

Well, that's a bit unfortunate, as that's going to be the time frame in which I can usually play. I went ahead and played last night and managed to confirm that my character profile would update when the server eventually reconnected, but can anyone confirm how achievements or deaths are handled when the server is offline? Anyone have dead characters that aren't reflected as such in their profile because of the server downtime?

[ster]

As for the consequences, I'm not entirely sure but I think a character you create in offline mode will not be registered in the character vault. Achievements won't be logged in your online profile either. I think if you play a character offline that was created while online, the character progress and maybe achievements will be saved to your profile next time you play the character online.

As i've literally just won a character that spent 90% of its life in server downtime hell i can safely say you just need to be online long enough to save your character once for it to be registered in the character vault

[SamGray]

Thanks. As you say, it seems to be syncing ok eventually, so I'll stop worrying about it.