Dumb Steam purchase question

[Keria]

If this is in the wrong place feel free to move, I wasn't sure where to put it.

I've never bought from Steam and this is a really lame time to do so according to the news, I kinda want another FFXI account for my friends to mess around on and it's on half price atm.

What I want to know is if the game will auto-download, if it does, can I cancel that without messing my game up? Or can I just buy the game and not download it at all, then wait for the CD key (do they get sent via email?) Can't be bothered with a reinstall/messing up my current install. Steam support is worthless and suggested using my original disc to install via Steam as an alternative to re-downloading. Sup every update since 2008

[Kaisha]

You can access the serial key without installing the game. It won't mess up your registry this way. Just don't have Steam install it after purchase.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../steamffxi.jpg

[Keria]

awesome, thanks! also wow at how fast the key turned up.

[Kaylia]

awesome, thanks! also wow at how fast the key turned up.

Transferring a few hundred bytes of data rarely takes long!

[Kaisha]

That and Steam typically has a licensed amount of keys to distribute on their end, so there's no waiting on the publishers to send them the key to deliver to you.