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Half-Life 2 Preloading from Steam
Nos. writes "For those of us using Valve Software's Steam platform, we can now begin 'preloading' Half-Life 2. The article explains that this will download an encrypted version of the game that you can unlock when you purchase it. They only say that purchase options will be available soon."
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.
Steam is free. I use it to play the version of cstrike that came with my platnum Half Life pack I got a few years back.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
...one, zero: http://www.filerush.com/torrents/Half-Life%202%20P reload%20Cache.torrent
I call shenanigans. DisC was specifically written for taking apart Turbo C dos executables. If you were genuinely following a trace like this, you would have almost certainly just intercepted the outgoing call to "_vis.dll" and loaded the truth value inline - not like you wouldn't have had enough room to work in.
This should be modded "Funny" since the poster makes it clear this is a joke by his usage of "syke" in his signature. Being syked is the 80's equivalent of the aughts being punk'd.
-AC
It also puts Sierra in the not so enviable position of selling a product directly to the customers while also selling it to retail. Retail isn't happy when they get undercut by the guy giving it to them. Especially places like walmart. Of course, they're also building a way to eventually circumvent the retailers AND the publishers, which Sierra isn't happy about, as you noted.
Of course, not every game can be sold via steam like scenarios. The FPS market comes with a lot of assumptions about the demographic. Dominately technical, online (broadband)and expensive computers. Take out any of those and steam just doesn't make sense. If Valve wants to branch out to a broader demographic by making games in the vein of Popcap, you really need something tied much closer to the browser than a standalone app just for shopping. Or if they want to sell something like Deer Hunter to people that don't live on the internet or read PC Gamer magazines, then a nice orange box at walmart is still your best bet.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
As far as I know, it's only preloading stuff that won't change between now and the time the game ships. Graphics, sounds, levels, anything that's done. The actual game engine itself probably won't load until you pay for the game. I'm sure someone will eventually figure out how to decrypt the cache file, but it won't do much good without the game engine itself.
everyday is another shooter.
As I said, the computing power does not exist. By this I mean all the computers in the world working together could not crack AES 256 in a lifetime, actually, they couldn't crack it in thousands of years.
And, of course, HL2 will be released in less than a year.
So, supposing they are using a reasonable encryption scheme, and why not, AES is freely available, no one can possibly crack it before it's released.
Way back in I-don't-remember-when, I had heard so much about this "Counter-Strike" thing that I finally broke down and bought a $30 retail copy at GameStop. Loved it. I quickly relalized this was just a mod for the full game called Half-Life. Always wanted to play Half-Life, but it was never worth the extra $20-30 bucks to me to be able to play it. So I pirated my roommate's copy until I almost beat the game... Then there was a hard drive format, so no more HL.
Steam comes along and with my CS reg key, I at last get the full version of Half-Life LEGALLY, and quick and easy access to other popular mods, and a server Favorites list (don't remember if original CS allowed this. I used to write down the IP of a good server to play there) so I can find good games faster, and keep it updated VERY easily. I've installed older CS numerous times and version compatibility was a constant headache, even WITH the seemingly appropriate patches. With Steam, all that business is managed automatically. It's heaven. As for buggy or memory intensive, I encountered one bug so far (input lag playing havoc with my keyboard) and that lasted only a few days. And I don't know how little RAM you have, but steam barely scratches my 512mb, which I presume is common for todays FPS player.
As long as you didn't pirate the game(s), Steam is wonderful, IMHO