HalfLife 2

[mbs357]

I had my uncle log into my Steam account and purchase HL2 for me the night before last. Unfortunatly, you can't use one credit card to buy two of the same package to prevent fraud.

@_@

He bought Silver on his account, then bought it on mine, and I can't play it because of fraud protection. And now the "Browse Games" function isn't working so we haven't been able to use another card. Apparently you can buy it from the Steam Powereed mainsite...I'll try that tonight if Browse Games doesn't work.

BUT, before the purchase was processed and thus refused, I got to play it for a few hours. Awesome game.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Orwellian? Dude... seriously.... this is the next logical step from Valve's authentication servers. Steam is convenient... read about a new patch.... *checks steam* ohhhh... I already have it! I'm ready to play.

It is not wanted with me... it is an intrusion in my eyes. They could have done something as simple as they did with KotOR or Men of Valor and simply put a "check for upgrades" button in the game menu. Why does it have to be it's own manager? Why can't just the program have it built in? They are setting us all up for big brother Steam to monitor our games and keep us "safe" from those nasty pirates.

It is overkill and unneccessary... I hate how now every time I start my computer Steam comes on and whines at me about my internet connection not being on. I do not trust Steam and I want it off my box. I just want to play a stupid game... I don't need some corporation telling me how to play it and watching me when I do.

[Max Jenius]

Orwellian? Dude... seriously....  this is the next logical step from Valve's authentication servers. Steam is convenient... read about a new patch.... *checks steam* ohhhh... I already have it! I'm ready to play.

It is not wanted with me... it is an intrusion in my eyes. They could have done something as simple as they did with KotOR or Men of Valor and simply put a "check for upgrades" button in the game menu. Why does it have to be it's own manager? Why can't just the program have it built in? They are setting us all up for big brother Steam to monitor our games and keep us "safe" from those nasty pirates.

It is overkill and unneccessary... I hate how now every time I start my computer Steam comes on and whines at me about my internet connection not being on. I do not trust Steam and I want it off my box. I just want to play a stupid game... I don't need some corporation telling me how to play it and watching me when I do.

No, they're set up so that Valve can make more money per copy sold rather than have to go through publishers like Vivendi. Their margins are 3x higher through Steam. I would rather have Valve see more of my money than Vivendi. I think you're reading wayyyy too much into it. Plus if you're so worried about DRM, then I hope you're on a Linux box. But I mean, you CAN set steam to not run every time you start your computer up....

Its not Big Brother, its cost effective. Single Player is like, the FIRST and EASIEST part of a game to crack. But hey, you can think what you like, nobody's forcing you to play the game. But hey, maybe you're right and Steam is really SKYNET in disguise!!! OMFG!

It does suck that HL1 isn't souped up though... That bugged me. But oh well, I mostly wanted the back catalogue of games anyway because I lost my OpForces and never played Blue Shift.

[JsARCLIGHT]

OK, let me try the reasoning this way:

It's all fine and good that they have this "download the whole game online!" "never see a retail box!" "Maker keeps all the jack!" distro setup going for the people that want it... but I did not want that. The reason I bought the package and the disc and the receipt from a store was so that I could avoid having to connect to the internet. I dislike having to download things, let alone "ask a server if I might play the game I just purchased" online. I want the games I buy in a box to not need the internet to work... to me it is assinine that a game that does not require the internet as an integral part of gameplay still requires the internet to work. It may not seem like it but there are still people like me out there, old timers, who don't like having to log on to the internet every time we want to play a game. It's like having to ask permission when you want to play the thing. I do not like having to register things that I paid money for... outside of offering you some hollow promise of tech support (that very few people ever use) there is no reason to register software... the only reason they make you do it is under the guise of "piracy protection". Well I don't want to have to pay the penalty for someone trying to keep pirates away from their games. When I buy a game from a store I want to be able to stick in the disc and hit "go" and not have to worry about getting someone's permission to play it.

[Sundown]

Its not Big Brother, its cost effective. Single Player is like, the FIRST and EASIEST part of a game to crack. But hey, you can think what you like, nobody's forcing you to play the game. But hey, maybe you're right and Steam is really SKYNET in disguise!!!

It's simply innane to require one to have a working internet connection at all times he or she wishes to play a single player game that does not use the internet in any way, shape, or form.

What if one's connection goes down? What if one does't have internet at my present time? What if someone might want to play it on a laptop somewhere where they don't have wireless or internet access? It's not an unreasonable request to ask a single player offline game to be playable without a live internet connection giving you the nod each time you click the Halflife 2 icon. And I dare say that it's borderline-innane to consider it a somehow perfectly reasonable expectation. It's a burdensome inconvenience that doesn't have to be. Simple as that.

-Al

[JsARCLIGHT]

I think we owe it to Max to be honest in that once you yell and scream and pound on HL2 for a while it will eventually let you play the game without an active internet conneciton. I have no clue how I got it to do that but it does allow me to play the game offline now. HL1 is not so lucky, it will not allow me to play it without running in "online" mode... so screw that.

[Gunbuster]

I agree with JsARCLIGHT My biggest fear is when will they start to do this with DVD moives ...remember Divx

[fearyaks]

Eh, I will be getting it sometime soon-ish. Just need to get myself a new PC first though.

Truthfully, I don't even know if I could play 'My Little Pony' on my piece of crap.

But I'm really upgrading because of Pirates!

[Max Jenius]

I think we owe it to Max to be honest in that once you yell and scream and pound on HL2 for a while it will eventually let you play the game without an active internet conneciton. I have no clue how I got it to do that but it does allow me to play the game offline now. HL1 is not so lucky, it will not allow me to play it without running in "online" mode... so screw that.

LoL seriously?

I dunno, I just don't see a problem with it right now because I've been on broadband for years, and it rarely goes down. BUT you do make valid points for being able to play offline w/o a connection. All I'm sayin is that its far from Orwellian.

Oh and the Skynet thing was a joke I said to my buddies while we were all furiously typing to eachother on MSN having HL2 authentication races...

I was first out the door, but now they're all way farther in the game than me... d'oh!

So if you harass Steam enough it lets you play eh? Interesting...

[Max Jenius]

I agree with JsARCLIGHT My biggest fear is when will they start to do this with DVD moives ...remember Divx

You can back up content downloaded from steam...

[Chowser]

wait a sec, let me get this straight.

if I go buy the game, after I install it, I CANNOT play it (SINGLE PLAYER, the only multiplayer i play nowaways is still MW4) without an internet connection present?

How am I supposed to load this thing into my notebook in my patrol car? our internet access in the cars are strictly limited to BMV photo imaging and our mdt software. I can't even access yahoo.

so my only option is to bring my own notebook in, plug it into the car, hook my cell phone up, and connect to the internet at less than 9600 and try to play?????

j/k, i would never goof around at work, even when NOTHING is moving between 3am and 6am....oh hey, that's my partner, i just drove by him 10 minutes ago, oh, that's my boss, i just drove past him 2 minutes ago, oh, hey, i just saw that deer 5 minutes ago., wait, here's someone i can pull over, oh wait, no, that's another police car, and another, and it's the same deer, let's see if i can hit it, at least we'll be able to eat. (our city is 7 1/2 square miles with two interstates crossing through it). i feel sorry for anyone that comes through our town when we get bored on nights.

[JsARCLIGHT]

So if you harass Steam enough it lets you play eh? Interesting...

The way it is "supposed" to work is that you must start Steam, log in, tell Steam to "remember your login", launch HL2 while still online, exit out, shut everything down, then restart Steam and select "offline mode" and HL2 and HL1 are supposed to be playable offline... I ran that maze about three times and finally got HL2 to work offline but not HL1.

And to answer Chowser's question, yes you need an active internet connection to install HL2 with the ability to create the Steam account but from what I understand once you authorize the game you can install it on as many computers as you want... the limitation being the authorization is linked to your Steam account and you must "log in" that name at the computer you wish to play the game on. I'm guessing that means HL2 is like what we in the CG world call a "floating license" meaning you can have the program installed and useable on several machines but you can only have one seat running at any given time.

[Zentrandude]

or download the pirate version or crack if one does come out if not now. the knuckleheads who posted comments in megagames are saying thats what they are doing instead of waiting for hours and days to be registered.

[wolfx]

or download the pirate version or crack if one does come out if not now. the knuckleheads who posted comments in megagames are saying thats what they are doing instead of waiting for hours and days to be registered.

Wasn't the downloadable cracked version already out a week ago?

I'm not bothered getting it. My system probably couldn't handle it.

To those who are playing the game, are they getting a better performance compared to Doom 3?

[Max Jenius]

or download the pirate version or crack if one does come out if not now. the knuckleheads who posted comments in megagames are saying thats what they are doing instead of waiting for hours and days to be registered.

I wonder what conditions produce these "hours or days" because me and several others were posting like mad in the PA Forum HL2 thread and it seemed to go pretty fast for all of us after like a 3 minute hang at 20%. This was while Valve's servers were getting hit pretty hard too, we were looking at the Steam content server activity graphs and it was lit up like mad.

Possible problems -

Dial Up connections?(Only seen it on broadband...)

Slow Computers?(Only seen it running on Athlon XP(Friends')/64(Me, socket 939)

Old OS?(Only seen it on XP and those worked)

Do any of these factors sound about right to anyone having trouble?

[do not disturb]

so i still haven't gotten to play this crap....what a waste of money.

too many freakin problems, too many conflicts, too many issues, i loved HL1 but this shiet is ridiculous. do i need a degree in gaming and computer science to get this working or what?

[Zentrandude]

or download the pirate version or crack if one does come out if not now.  the knuckleheads who posted comments in megagames are saying thats what they are doing instead of waiting for hours and days to be registered.

I wonder what conditions produce these "hours or days" because me and several others were posting like mad in the PA Forum HL2 thread and it seemed to go pretty fast for all of us after like a 3 minute hang at 20%. This was while Valve's servers were getting hit pretty hard too, we were looking at the Steam content server activity graphs and it was lit up like mad.

Possible problems -

Dial Up connections?(Only seen it on broadband...)

Slow Computers?(Only seen it running on Athlon XP(Friends')/64(Me, socket 939)

Old OS?(Only seen it on XP and those worked)

Do any of these factors sound about right to anyone having trouble?

hard to say. even with broadband you still have connection problems. might be the people who posted have cable but live in blocks with lots of cable users trying to reg at the same time.

older computer I don't think it would have that much of affect on your connection speed. unless your using multiplayer but then why bother playing a game your computer cant run well.

With os runs with how new your computer is, like would you use a 4 or 5 ghz machine with 400Gb 2GB ram (k bit exaggerate that specs) and use dos 6.2 with windows 3.11? Seeing thats its newest os suggested they are using new or newish computers that should handle the requirements.

[Gunbuster]

Possible problems -

Dial Up connections?(Only seen it on broadband...)

Slow Computers?(Only seen it running on Athlon XP(Friends')/64(Me, socket 939)

Old OS?(Only seen it on XP and those worked)

Do any of these factors sound about right to anyone having trouble?

Nope

I'm unsing a T3 connection with (26309kbps/10416kps from dslreport) and no I did not fudge it

got a P4 3.0 GHz with 2 GB of ram

got XP with SP1 (not touching SP2)

still got problem connection to that POS

I stop all anti virus, firewalls, NATs...I quit!!! forget it I'll wait for the private version

Edited November 20, 2004 by Gunbuster

[Max Jenius]

Weird;

I'm on a firewalled <T3 college network(w/ many others activating at once)

Athlon 64 Socket 939 3500+

Asus A8V Deluxe

512MB DDR400

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

Sound Blaster Audigy

Nothing really spectacular in my setup...

Authenticated in approximately 5-10 min. I was playing at 11:40pm AK Standard Time on Monday night. Perhaps certain configs are difficult...

Buying it standalone will still require Steam... hrm... quite the pickle. There are several forums dealing with these issues however, hopefully some of them will have some answers for you all. It really is a pity that you're having so much trouble with something so wonderful. I hope it works out soon.

[wolfx]

Looks like this person's pretty pissed.....

http://chugworth.com/rants.php?id=7

He mentions there's no multiplayer...but someone here mentioned there's multiplayer?

[bsu legato]

Half Life 2.....DEATHMATCH!!!

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news

damn....nearly 10 more hours until I can try it out. I can't wait to use the gravity gun to bust a cinderblock on somebody's noggin.

[mikeszekely]

I heard a rumor (can't remember where) that Half-Life 2 won't make it to the Xbox, but probably the Xbox Next (or Xbox 2 or Xenon or whatever they want to call it). Hopefully, that means that console gamers (like me) can enjoy it without it being hacked down to ugly but without all the bugs and Steam issues some of you guys are running into.

[Noriko Takaya]

Man, I am so glad I did not buy this game. While I did enjoy HL1, I do not relish the idea of someone being able to monitor what I play online. So I'm in total agreement with JsARCLIGHT on this. F--- the -astards. If they want to go that route, I won't buy their products. I'm just glad I bought Medal of Honor Pacific Assault and Vampire - The Masquerade Bloodlines. Both of those will keep me busy until I get my new PS2 and Bloodrayne 2 and Stand Alone Complex games.

[Max Jenius]

That "stutter bug" is auto-save...

that guy sure did his homework...

Its funny when people can complain so much about trivial things. I mean, I'm not sayin I ain't guilty .. but still... its a freakin game. If he doesn't like it, then he doesn't have to make half-assed arguments against the system etc. he can just say "I'm an artsy fartsy girly man that liked HL1's dull textures, but HATES HL2's better dull textures!"

[Graham]

so i still haven't gotten to play this crap....what a waste of money.

too many freakin problems, too many conflicts, too many issues, i loved HL1 but this shiet is ridiculous. do i need a degree in gaming and computer science to get this working or what?

Heh, this is one of the many reasons why I stick purely to consoles for my gaming needs.

Insert disk, press power on button....voila! Instant gaming.

Graham

[Ladic]

First Half-Life 3 pic leaked!!!!

[NoSuchFile]

Finished playing throught Half-Life 2, that game ROCKS, best single player i've had in a long time, a little short thought and the final combat is somewhat dissapointing, but overall really great game, i'm spending loads of time playing Counter Strike Source that comes with HL2, really cool game