Valve Releases Counter-Strike 1.6 Installer

Thanks to Blue's News for pointing out that Valve has released the Counter-Strike 1.6 installer for Steam, the broadband delivery platform for which "over 200,000 new accounts have been created" since its official launch on Friday. The 379mb install, helpful for those who can't get swift downloads from Steam itself, is available from Gamer's Hell, Worthplaying, and FilePlanet (reg. required).

Comments

After a rough start...

[preric]

which included release delays and (still) major lag in Steam downloading, updating and general functionality, I am pleased that those problems have leveled out to a point where Steam is actually usefull.

While frustrating to the rest of the non-broadband world, I think this is the real future, just as downloading a movie to your TV will (hopefully) circumvent movie rental stores. And with over 200,000 accounts on Steam, it looks like I'm not alone!

I've had the opposite experience

[fireduck]

Downloaded the steam non-beta client right after the original story was posted to slashdot. the beta client wouldn't uninstall through window add/remove. eventually found the correct unwise.exe command line to get it out.

Installed steam and pretty much left the computer while it updated itself, I'm guessing it took several hours (what with the thousands of other people doing it simultaneously).

Then it died at some point while trying to transfer my existing content (HL and whatever mods I had installed through regular means). So we had to re-install steam and go through it all over again. (where it didn't want to transfer existing content anymore, for some reason)

After several more hours, I finally have steam working properly, so I try and play HL. Does nothing after pressing the install button over and over (install, wait 10 minutes to see if it's doing anything, no? click HL again and repress install). Eventually, half a day later (literally), it finally opens the progress window. Have to download it (400+ MB). So, after what it predicts to be 140 minutes, apparently it has HL. (I went to bed at this point). Get up, try to run HL, steam crashes with some memory address is can't access or whatever. Reboot, retry several times, same problem. Steam is crashing on load (far before it gets to loading HL)

The stupid client seems to keep corrupting itself. So for now, I've given up. Steam FAQ doesn't address this, and they've taken the steam forums down temporarily.

I seriously can't see how they can distribute HL2 through this method. Regardless of how much cheaper it is to purchase HL2 through steam, I'm buying the retail version, simply because I want a freaking executable I can run. (this presuming they don't hide the HL2 executable behind steam; and only use steam as the cd-key verification tool. which is a big presumption at this point).

Steam beta eventually worked for me (after a few initial corruptions of the client requiring re-installs), but I don't have 13 hours to install steam, update steam, install HL only to have it corrupt itself again.

Can anyone verify if steam == spyware?

[cyranose]

I found this link today claiming steam is possibly collecting info on kazaa usage.

Steam gets tricky by siN For those of you metalheads who are also online gamers, it has come to the attention of the gaming community that Steam by VALVe software, the program that is used for the mod Counterstrike, has been (and still is) gathering huge amounts of information off of personal computers that have Steam installed. To quote: "1) Browse to steam dir 2) Search for gcache.gcf 3) Open the 400+ meg file in a hex editor 4) Search for 'kazaa' and 'mp3' ---- 5) Ponder 6) Curse and uninstall steam" The question is why is Steam looking at Kazaa user names, mp3 contents, HTM records, and more? Those suspect of these activities are pointing fingers that these actions might somehow be linked to the RIAA and it's attempt to browse through users files and folders in a vain attempt to see what people are downloading. Just a heads up.

I don't have steam installed yet, so I can't verify personally. But maybe someone here can, and hopefully reply if they find the kazaa and mp3 strings in said steam files. True of false?

Steaming

[Little Dave]

Phew... what a stinking turd Valve have laid on us. My attempts to "upgrade" my perfectly operational HL/CS installation has led to me now having two completely broken games. Steam is a hideous Frankenstein's Monster of a delivery mechanism, that only a mother could love. It locks up, goes quiet for hours on end, fails to keep you informed about what it's doing, crashes, doesn't terminate properly, hogs resources and ultimately, doesn't let you play any games.

I wonder if I can get a refund for a five year old game? ;)

Even more worrying is the fact that Steam has informed me that my HL key entitles me to one month free subscription. Erm, hold on? What does this mean? After the one month (by which time I might just have a working game again) I have to pay to play HL/CS? It doesn't say as much, but it also doesn't suggest otherwise.

Bums I tells ya! No-good cads and bums, the lot of 'em.