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According to this page

Next week we will be releasing the Source SDK, along with a surprise for the community.

TF2 maybe?

At the time of this post, 82,542 users think that steam is working properly.

4. BILLING, PAYMENT AND OTHER SUBSCRIPTIONS You may become a Subscriber of Steam without paying Valve to access any services, software and other content Valve offers for free. However, Valve or its authorized Steam resellers will charge Subscription fees to access certain services, software and content areas of Steam. You must be a Subscriber of Steam and pay any required Subscription fees to use such services, software and other content. If you must pay a Subscription fee to access part of Steam this information will be posted in the Rules of Use. All fees are stated in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified. You may subscribe by providing us with a valid payment and billing information. Current Subscription fees and other billing information is available at http://www.steampowered.com

Is this license agreement on the box in a place where I can view it before I purchase it? Not the last time I checked.

Why not read it online?

Oh, wait, this 'try before you buy' thing only applies to full retail products, not EULAs... ;-)

I'm glad to see that Valve is so keen on cracking down on pirates that they ban paying customers as well. How about taking care of all of the (MANY!) paying customers that the game makes extremely ill? Total silence from Valve on that front...

http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php? threadid=176796&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

Steam is the spyware.

Valve has just disabled 20,000 steam accounts for using a banned CD key!

Story here.

Interesting reading :) Anyone want to submit this as a slashdot story in the games section? I can't be fscked writing it up.

Valve provides the download. Thus, you are getting the game from the provider, legally. You can back up your downloaded game files onto CD or DVD after you have finished downloading them.

I pre-downloaded the entire HL2 game before it came out. I only had to unlock the game the night it came out. Unlike Halo 2, where I stood in line for 2 hours.

If you go and check out:

The Steam status page

You can see that they have 15 gigabits of bandwidth available to them. This page also has the nice side affect of being able to see if Steam is having difficulties. When it starts to max out it's bandwidth, you can know it's under stress.

Anyways, no problems whatsoever with my install via Steam, the only way of getting that game that doesn't involve the publisher taking the product given to them by the developer and packaging it. BTW, VUG's site has an update on the install issues:

Vivendi Universal Games would like to notify you of two important updates regarding the product installation for Half-Life 2. The issues identified below are easily addressed.

1. Half-Life 2 - CD Installation error when Counter-strike: Source is not selected The following has been identified as a known issue with Half-Life 2 Standard Edition (not Collector's or European DVD editions):

Problem: If during the initial installation process the option to install "Counter-strike: Source" is NOT selected, an error may occur during installation. The message will be: cabinet file error, fatal disk error, or something similar.

Solution: Cancel the current installation process and reinstall the game from the beginning, starting with Disk #1. Make certain to select the option to install both Half-Life 2 and Counter-strike: Source.

Note: If you prefer not to retain the Counter-strike: Source program on your system AFTER INSTALLATION, you can remove it using the following procedure:

* After HL2 has been successfully installed, open up the Steam client.
* Select the Play Games list
* RIGHT click on Counter-strike: Source and select Properties
* Select "Delete Local Content."

2. Product Authentication Delay When Installing Half-Life 2 Some consumers may experience delays in authenticating Half-Life 2 during the installation process. This is due to the high volume of consumers who have purchased Half-Life 2 and are installing the game, which is causing high traffic on the Steam authentication servers. Please inform any Half-Life 2 customers that encounter this situation to keep trying, as this is a temporary delay.

Just FYI: Half-Life Source (aka Half-Life 1 using the new engine) is not automatically included in every version of Half-Life 2. You need to get at least the "Silver" Edition from steampowered.com to get HL-Source. It is not included in the boxed version. See http://www.steampowered.com/

at least you can play it.

There's a large group of us out there who can't run it at all: Install, ok, connect to steam, ok, update, ok, run game.....wait.....dvd drive spins up....wait.... nothing happens.

See http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php? s=&threadid=176998&perpage=15&pagenumber=1 or http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=6 9940b3af0c4026c73f52b06585fe6ba&t=52983

Seems to be a problem with DVD+R/RWs.

Valve even has a stickied thread on their forum here.

i am not allowed to share, but if you have any idea how much bandwidth steam is doing

Uhhh... 9,402 Mbps? And there are even detailed breakdowns of who's bandwidth they're using, available, linked to that site.

http://www.steampowered.com/?area=cafe_directory&c ountry=US&state=NY has the info you seek.

Maybe I misunderstood your question, but the silver package is available right here.

You need to buy it through Steam, though. I got the game bundled with my GFX card (the ATI bundle), works fine :) No Half Life 1 : Source, though...

Enjoy!

Check out the Steam Network Status. While I write this, they are using 11.3 Gbps!

I'm sure Valve will be fine without your $49.00 Bronze package fee. You will be missing out on a wonderful game experence. Enjoy TuxRacer!

Strange, the Steam Status says their using less then half their available bandwidth. Maybe its just a really big download?

There's a statement on steampowered.com.
"Half-Life 2 For Sale?"

Apparently they would be in violation of the contract they have with Vivendi if they unlocked the game files before the 16th.

Half-Life 2 For Sale?
November 13, 2004, 4:57 pm valve
If you have purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, we are sorry you are still waiting to play. This is not Valve's choice. Vivendi is insisting that the game has not yet been released, and has threatened that Valve would be in violation of its contract if we activate the Half-Life 2 Steam authentication servers at this time.

Thanks for your patience and we will update you when we have more news to share.
Link: http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news&id =344

The original announcement says midnight Pacific time. Half-Life Fallout has a countdown clock that counts down to the release.

ATI Radeon cards are the most popular with gamers.

Liar

There is a thread on the steam forums with much more info on this issue and possible fixes and workarounds to mitigate some of the problems with this.
http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php? s=&postid=1372673#post1372673

I would be willing to bet that piracy would occur even if prices for PC games were cut drastically. Serious Sam (and its sequel) were both introduced at a budget price of $20 and they're probably available for less than $10 at many retailers, but I would suspect that if you went to the big torrent sites, you'd see at least a few people leeching them. In this situation, if you are upset with the industry's pricing, don't spend your money on the game. That doesn't give you a free license to pirate it, either; the developer loses your money and you give up the enjoyment you would've gained from playing the game. That's how the laws are written and how the system works; if enough people do this, the prices will drop. I honestly hate telling people that this is their only option, but it's the only way to do it legally and attempting to legitimize your options by saying "oh, well, they charge too much, those fuckers, so I'm going to get back at them by pirating it!"

All that being said, you've vastly misrepresented the pricing scheme for Half-Life 2. As you see on the Steam website, Half-Life 2 with CS: Source is $50. The silver package (which includes all of Valve's games plus Day of Defeat: Source) is $60. Now, granted, the collector's edition is priced at a whopping $90 on their website, but many other retailers have it listed for $70-80. This gives you everything that the previous packages had (on DVD, if you buy the retail version rather than the Steam copy) plus a bunch of other crap (soundtrack, T-shirt, 'making of' DVD, fancy box, etc). You're hardly being forced into paying $80.

...using Steam to get HL2 vs. buying it retail? If I recall correctly you can only get the package that includes the Source rework of HL1 via online purchase and I *really* want that, but I still don't like the idea of dropping $50 or so on a game and not getting anything physical to hang on to. I know it's old-fashioned, but I still like having a backup copy to hang on to just in case my drive dies or something.

Amen to the "I want tangible stuff" comment. Check out this post for a solution. Basically, you'll have to archive all of the \steamapps folder with winrar, and back it up on DVD/CD. About 2 1/2 DVD's or a fsckload of CD's are your options.

i paid for halflife a long time ago (1998). now i want to register it with Steam (just so i can play it online) but they say my cd-key is already used. and in their FAQ they want me to pay $10 "handling" so that they can "reset" my cd-key.
TOTALY EVIL http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=cd_acco unt_faq

maybe he went here ?

(Darn, I did preview, but somehow I still managed to mess it up. second try, mod parent down)

I keep on seeing steam mentioned somewhere,
But what the heck is it?
Ok so I checked the link in the article, which lead me to a very shallow feature list. I tried google, which was no help at all.

I have a vague grasp of what it is by now, it seems like some cross of instant messenger and automatic updater/downloader, with a few online games thrown in.
but can I somewhere find a more in depth explanation of what it does and how it does it? And why it is the best thing since preprocesed cheese?

I keep on seeing steam mentioned somewhere,
But what the heck is it?
Ok so I checked the link in the article, which lead me to a very shallow . I tried , which was no help at all.

I have a vague grasp of what it is by now, it seems like some cross of instant messenger and automatic updater/downloader, with a few online games thrown in.
but can I somewhere find a more in depth explanation of what it does and how it does it? And why it is the best thing since preprocesed cheese?

I haven't been over to the Steam forums yet, so I don't know what everyone else thinks, but it seems to me that CS:S might have been a little... rushed.

Where are the new models? The "surprises"? (Fable, anyone?!)This is basically the Beta with a few more maps. And NOT the most popular maps either.

"But they'll update it with new models etc soon" is all I've been hearing. Yes, maybe so. But when I buy a game I expect it to be fully finished. The fact that CS started as a fan mod shouldn't mean we should have to settle for a handful of maps upon release and hope the fans make the rest. Is it just coincidence that some of the most popular maps are the ones that missing? These are also the maps that the modding community are most likely to port over FOR VALVE, FREE OF CHARGE!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of the modding community. It could even be argued that it's fitting that some of the classic maps are being created by the community again. However, the court hearing tomorrow (a day after release) just makes me wonder...

Maybe Half Life 2 will convince me it was money well spent. After all, it is *technically* the game I paid for!

Officially, it's a violation of most (if not all) software licenses to charge money for others' use of that software. I'm sure there are cybercafes that hope to fly under the radar, and some that are responsible and buy copies for all of their machines. I know that Valve has a deal in place where the cafe pays a per-machine monthly subscription and gets licencing for all of their games. http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=cyberca fes

Take a look at the third entry under "Processor Vendor" at the Half-Life 2 Hardware Survey.
Looks like this isn't the only place where that's a valid poll answer.


--
Read the guide, then get yourself a free iPod.

The latest Half-Life 2 Steam preload was primarily Counter-Strike: Source content as indicated by this news post so it seems pretty certain that Counter-Strike: Source will be part of Half-Life 2

I find this rather disappointing as Counter-Strike is my least favorite Half-Life MOD.

Well further research on the steam site shows that their own writeup is faulty:
Check out the results of the "Half-Life 2 Hardware Survey". More than half a million respondents have taken part so far.

And you'd have to be a statistics nut to notice the "unique samples:" line on the survey results page. I guess the steampowered editor did it on purpose to get his job :-)....

Steam Server Status

Player Count 153,531 people seem to be more capable than you.

Steam Server Status

Player Count 153,531 people seem to be more capable than you.

And proven false, there are things in this story that still don't add up. Just look at the release dates, who here has heard of a game going gold on Monday, getting all the CDs pressed, games boxed, collector's edition stuff gathered together, shipped so that it will be in all the retailers hands so that there will be no unfair early selling advantages on/before the date, and then have the game 3-4 days later be released?

I sure haven't, from my understanding that it takes at least half a month to get to the point were the game has gone gold to shipping and in the stores. Doom 3 went gold on July 14th, and wasn't expected to hit the shelves until August 2nd. A 3-4 day window is a huge potential for disaster, and given the way Valve has been bitched at for missing and changing dates I doubt that they would announce it with that time frame.

Also while the game is undergoing pre-loading, from my understanding it is just the parts that are final (i.e. sounds, some textures, etc) and still leaves Valve open to sending out the final stuff. So while there is evidence of HL2 making some progress, it doesn't mean that the game will be shipping soon.

Since the HL2Fallout forum seems to have less bandwidth than all the CS players in the world (and thus is currently unreachable), here is a link to the Steam forum's thread.

Info here:
http://www.csnation.net/comments.php?id=7475
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3 4798&page=1&pp=15
http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php? threadid=132122
All the info you need to know this is probably fake.

WON Shutdown notice

Based on their status page, their North American servers aren't even half maxed out right now.

It's been pre-Slashdotted. You get an error saying their servers are already too busy doing preloads and to try again in a few hours. If you want to see the in-steam announcement though, go here.

Also, as of the 18th August, if you have one of the ATI - HL2 deals (9800XT 9600XT with HL2 coupon) you can pull the game from Steam.

Check out the offer for details of how to get it.

I'm not a CS player myself, but I pulled it down to have a look at the new engine. Very nice, looking forward to HL2.

The moment I purchase a gaming CD I don't give a damn about the DMCA, Disney, or Device Drivers that install with I'm going to find a way to play without a CD. If not I would have to put MY games, which about half do not fit in normal CD racks in a bookshelf and than search through them every time I have an itch to play something. No thanks, I would rather tools like yourself call me a pirate than deal with consequences of being a niave consumer.

So long as you cannot expect the gaming companies to EVER replace your media is how long I will be using NOCD cracks and D-Tools. Most gaming companies don't get it, and until things like valve's steam are more widely used and accepted it is likely we will be rubbing atagonistic till one side is bloody and raw.

Heard of Steam?

It's exactly what you describe. It's (theoritically) a system that allows you to easily download patches and updates automatically for certain games (right now only Half-Life based games). Also it allows you to buy certain games ONLINE for download. One of the methods for purchasing Half-Life 2 is a download through steam, whenever you want, using your unique ID.

It's more than currently written on the site and rumors say they plan to make it even larger and expand the number of games supported to games other than Valve's.

Worth noting that many people don't like it, because it's not yet stable and fast, but Valve have hired one Bram Cohen to write parts of the distribution code.

Yes, it's propertiary.
Yes, it's currently slow.
Yes, many people inherintly dislike the new system.
But, yes, this is an alternative way from the standard methods of game distribution.

Official Valve Cyber Cafe Directory

or at your place

please mod the idiot parent down and this post up.

Official Valve Cyber Cafe Directory

or at your place

please mod the idiot parent down and this post up.

check out the HL2 survey if you haven't already seen it - it's quite interesting.
Most popular cards are Geforce4 MX, then GeForce4, GeForce 2 MX, the FX 5200.
It's here

If Valve is smart, then they would have a special 'CyberCafe' edition

From the FAQ:

"There isn't really a different version of Steam for Cafés. But when an official Café product key is used in Steam, a couple of special things happen:
- Your Steam account gives you access to all of the games currently on Steam
- Steam requires a password to be entered when the user tries to logout or quit"

Also, you might want to read up on how a CyberCafe should setup Steam.