Slashdot Mirror
Half-Life Games Make Steam Compulsory
Thanks to PlanetHalfLife for clarifying that you will soon need Valve's Steam technology installed to play any Half-Life engine title online. According to the site, "...sometime in the near future, Valve will be releasing an update to Half-Life that will require you to convert your old WonID CD-Key into a SteamID", and Valve's Erik Johnson explains this means "...you'll have to have ['digital content platform'] Steam installed to play the most current version of Half-Life [online]." Although he clarifies that "...no, you do not have to pay for Steam", and PlanetHalfLife points out "you should still be able to play HL through third-party server browsers", this is still a major change for Half-Life engine games such as Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Day Of Defeat.
A group of friends and me play Counterstrike every weekend. A fair few people are having a lot of problems even getting Steam to work properly, let alone play anything.
I know Steam is beta, but it's damn near complete and released (expected to coincide with the HL2 release). For those friends who want to join our Counterstrike game, they're going to be screwed if Valve don't fix some of the fundamental problems with the service.
... is a *fantastic* idea, quite frankly. The only thing I wish, and I do wish it fervently, is that there were something open-source that did the same thing. I've been involved with so many projects where you keep needing to re-invent this specific wheel, over and over, on every damn game, and if it were possible to do this in an open-source SDK, I'm sure you'd see support for it in most of the open engines out there. Would be a great boon to cross-platform games developers.
-- A mind is a terrible thing.
Steam is available on Linux, right?
Also, have there been anymore rumours about HL2 for Linux?
Not that it matters, I have WinXP sitting on this computer not doing anything, but the only reason I'm keeping that around is for HL2.
Hopefully Valve will keep doing things to turn off the gaming community. Between this and the surprisingly good looking quake 1 engines that have been coming out, I'll hopefully have some company on ye olde Quake 1 servers...
Ummm...
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
....Natural Selection
http://www.natural-selection.org
Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
Does that mean we can finally start looking forward to some steamy action? :)
Why are companies so insistent on placing hurdles in the path of gamers these days? Why ruin what otherwise -- going by all the videos and previews -- looks like being a fantastic experience?
Clueless.
I've had nothing but problems with Steam. If I'm forced to use it to play HL2 online, I'm not going to buy the game.
The idea behind Steam is good - using the proliference of broadband to allow game companies to publish and manage their own games. Bye bye Sierra hopefully.
Dial-up users will suffer pain on updates, difficult to get away from unless there are options to disable automatic updates to Steam.
Steam's state right now - well, once started it is OK. However, it can take a few seconds to several minutes to actually appear as a window, often leaving you wondering where the heck it is, or did you double click like you thought you did. Pain in the ass if you like positive confirmation something is running.
I can finally play Counterstrike on my analytical engine!
Go here to create your own Slashdot dis
I didn't see in the article if this also applies to LAN games, or only to games played on public servers.
IF this only applies to public servers, and I can still play HL on my LAN against my friends without this nonsense, then I suppose it is not so bad.
HOWEVER, if this will require me to have Steam installed just to play on my LAN, for-freaking-getaboutit.
www.eFax.com are spammers
At least half of the CS players I know play with a "borrowed" key. Many of those players will not go out and buy a access. If they need to spend money, they are going to buy the latest game. Not access to a 5 year old game. On the other hand, they could bundle it with HL2. If you get free access to HL1 if you buy HL2, that would be an incentive for many too finally shell out the cash for a legal copy of HL.
i've been running HLDS servers for 3+ years. here's what i think of steam:
... 15 minutes (with a cache already downloaded) and is still going. I'm not going to wait for it to finish
:(
:) and I wanted to migrate the server to it asap. But it was so unpleasant I gave up on that idea immediately. I've tried it a dozen times since then, and my distaste has only increased. Maybe I'm just a luddite. :(
Well there's a number of things. In no particular order:
The cache prevents me from messing with some maps - this is probably the main thing for me as server admin that bothers me. Too many maps have bad/limited/broken spawns. E.g. the default map oilrig has 27 T spawns (including a couple right next to ct spawn) and 10 CT spawns. You end up with telefrags if you have as few as 20 players and teams are 11-9
The steam client (both players and server) slows my whole machine down and takes 125MB ram - just for the gui.
Starting up server or client takes a LONG TIME. I just timed them both: I can start playing cs 1.5 in about 10 seconds. Steam CS took
I prefer a server application that doesn't require a GUI. If you need to run it as a service, e.g. via daemontools it can be done but it takes a lot more memory than the current version and gamehost crashed trying to run it.
I don't like the riot shield or new rifles but that's personal. However it DOES annoy me that they added new crap in but the hostages STILL can't swim or climb ladders, vehicles are broken (you often die if you crouch in one, etc.), and other glaring bugs are vigorously not being fixed.
Server performance was bad compared to 4.1.1.1 HLDS - cpu usage was about 4x as much on an empty server, and my ping was higher (right now 20 on HLDS compared to 50 on steam)
Lower FPS on my client (staring at a hostage on italy I get 80.0 on CS mod (maxed), but only 64-66 on steam.
Massive HD footprint - not an issue for most people but I only have an 8GB HD
It is not fun to use - the UI is ass, its slow, it just seems like a bad app, I reminds me of freeware from Bulgarian websites. I keep expecting it to crash.
I was really excited about it - I was one of the thousands of people that starting running it 2 hour before it was supposed to be live a few months ago, causing them to cancel the beta
in addition, from another professional server operator:
"I'm on half isdn, thats 64K (not 128 as ful isdn is) bidirectional. Only marginally faster than a 56Kmodem, i also have limited hours in a month and if you go over those hours the ISP dump you like a hot turd. downloading and re-downloading HLDS because stream is stupid enough to corrupt its own files isn't an option. I've just been screwed out of a hobby i quite enjoyed for no particular reason and it bothers me. I've no option to reinstall anything even because i can't keep any backups or installers since its all web junk.
i don't want to install the client. I never have wanted to install it. I dont like it. The only time i did install the client was on a virtual machine and it was a bitch to work with even then, bad ui, slow and badly laid out if i did display the information i wanted to know. I really don't like it. I also don't want to get patches using steam, i want executables which i can cut to cd and use again on a different machine if i need to, autoupdate isn't something i want to use and i dislike being forced to use it like this.
steam means that every time i want to boot up a server and test a new build i'll have to have my internet connection open, i'll pay for that connection and i'm not happy about this at all."
and from one of the authors of adminmod (the most popular and almost compulsory addon if you have an HLDS server):
"Yes, I have ADSL, but I would prefere to only have to download it once so I can just use the CD to install HL and copy any other files to a friends computer without having to re-download everything. It also means if I break it I wont have to redownload the whole sodding lot. And if I am forced to use Steam I might just give up on HL1 and wait for HL2 (or try and revive LANGames.net)."
Steam is not a bad idea so much as it's one that has no reason to exist. I don't see why Valve is making such a hoopla about this or emphasizing and demanding its usage. What's so wrong about Half-Life's current multiplayer implementation that demands this elaborate and questionable revision?
NOT the server, the client. with winex, winex whatver, everything ive tried has been a huge failure.
nt
I've played half-life and it's mods alot - I don't like the current system of a unique identifier and like the prospect of steam even less. I will either avoid this update (When they switch off the WONID servers I'll roll my own) or stop playing. Of course I won't buy a valve game again as a consequence. Maybe I should spend all that gaming time writing something better...
And thankyou valve for YET ANOTHER proprietry instant messaging system. Even though I dislike this push to steam it is still a great opportunity to do something positive about the current IM mess (by using an open protocol such as jabber) This stupidity/greed really gets to me. (If you didn't know steam has a built in proprietry im system)
Lastly, think of the likely consequences if steam gets cracked. It's so going to happen...
by a friend of mine who is a developer of HLDS plugins (part of the HLDS community keeping HLDS servers running):
:(
(quoted from email)
Here's how it goes on 512Kbps cable
connection:
1. Download steam installer (about 2 mins) and install
2. Wait while it patches itself (another 2mins). Login - at least it remembers my account from early betas (which didn't work)
3. Choose to download CS 1.6 but unheck start immediately.
4. Wait 22 mins for download. Download gets to 1 second remaining then stays on 1 second for a further 13 minutes. Network usage indicates it is still downloading at 400kbps. Give up, turn off machine and go out for diner.
5. Get back from dinner, resume CS 1.6 download - it starts immediately. I choose to start a local server on aztec with some bots.
6. Actually CS 1.6 looks quite nice - I can run in windowed mode and move the window normally and switch applications proprerly. But why no widescreen mode lower than 1280 pixels, and why can I still only pick window sizes that match a possible screen resolution? Aztec still has the same naff layout though - just prettier textures.
7. Decide to try a dedicated server - another 10 minutes wait.
8. Choose to start a CS server. 115 minutes wait
9. Start the server - starts Ok. Then I and try and connect to it from a local client: "You have been disconnected from the server- Reason: Invalid STEAM UserID Ticket". Tried switching the server to port 27016 so as not to conflict with the client - no joy.
10. Give up trying to start a dedicated server and try and join an internet game - pick an empty server running aztec which I've already downloaded. Takes about 40 seconds to connect.
11. Server turns out to be running amx mod
12. Run a command to speak the time - each time the plugin plays a sound the game freezes for half a second. I've heard of the same thing happening with adminmod plugins using sound.
Conclusion: Slow & Unstable is a good summary - and the GUI is *still* ugly. The only good things I saw were the improvements to the behaviour of the window in windowed mode, but that's probably CS 1.6 rather than steam.
Is Valve going to disable the whole WonID authorization system (by switching to the new SteamID's)? If so, (which is the impression I have), then every HL player anywhere is being forced to switch to steam. All complaints about the beta aside, I see *NO* advantages to steam from my perspective. I still want boxed versions of all of my games and not have to worry about whether or not Valve will be in business 10 yrs from now. I've bought too many "download only" software packages from companies that have gone out of business or bought up by other companies who are not interested in supporting old software. I just want a CD that works. I want to use a comprehensive server browser like ASE. In short, I don't want to use steam for anything, ever.
Users like choice. They like to choose how and when they play games. Steam seems to be the antithesis of that.
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
3 times this summer Valve updated their Valve-Anti_Cheat software without testing it against Counter-Strike (or Day of Defeat) running in winex or wine.
3 times we (the linux-using, counter-strike-playing community) were unable to play online for about 1 week while Transgaming figured out what Valve messed up and got them to fix it.
Countless hours have been spent by the developers of wine, winex, and the many gamers who play counter-strike in linux in getting it to work as great as it does (and it does work great).
But, Steam does not run in linux (at least not the CS client) so once again we will be left in the cold with no support or consideration from Valve.
Fuck you Valve, you arrogant bastards! Pull your head out of the sand and realize that there are plenty of us don't use windows and gladly pay for games.
I understand you not wanting to port Half-Life. But I do not understand why you keep making us go back to the drawing board in order for us to play our games. Is Steam that valuable - fuck no. It's a bloated, unneeded piece of crap that the gaming community (regardless of OS) doesn't want and hasn't asked for.
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)