If you're going to change how the steam version works, let us opt out of it.

I just saw the news item that soon people who bought the game on steam will be unable to use the standalone client to access their account, they'll need to have steam running and launch the game on steam.

This is very frustrating. While I did originally start on steam when I was just trying out the game at the request of a friend, not really expecting to get into it, I haven't actually used steam to play the game in over 3 years. I much prefer to not have steam running in the background, so I've always downloaded and used the standalone client directly from SE.

Frankly it sounds ridiculous that you can't find a solution, to whatever security concern is prompting this change, without forcing people to play through steam. But if you must, can't you at least give us the option to change our account to non-steam status? This even benefits SE in that people who leave steam will no long have to buy new expansions on steam giving Valve a cut of the sale.