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Half-Life 2 Preloading from Steam: Part 2

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the teasing-us dept.

BrainsVolpe writes "For those of us on Steam, we can continue our 'preloading'of Half-Life 2. This time around we'll be downloading 'the majority of the audio of Half-Life 2 in encrypted form.' Does this mean we'll be getting HL2 before September 30th? Only Valve knows for sure... sorta."

6 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Ask Slashdot: How to re-start? by richie2000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I got the prompt to pre-load before, denied it to let the server load subside a bit and now I can't get it to ask me again. Now what?

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    1. Re:Ask Slashdot: How to re-start? by Baikala · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wich was the default setting back when all this "diferent secctions" madness begun.

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  2. Digital transfer is the best way by ricotest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I really like this (legal) digital form of selling games. The pre-loading makes it as instant as a game box, but Valve can't really go out of stock. Makes it easier for lazy people like me who aren't pre-ordering HL2 from their local game shop.

  3. Encryption? by Sp00nMan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While this may be the future of games delivery, I don't quite understand the "protection" involved with this Steam system. I mean, once the entire game is on your system, how long would it take for a pirate group to crack the thing and let you play it without paying? How is this going to be any different that other methods of copy protection?

    1. Re:Encryption? by karmatic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's not encrypted (despite what they say), if you fire up GCFScape, you can open and extract all the files.

      The true protection lies in that they aren't preloading Half-Life 2.gcf (the filename is in the ClientRegistry.blob file), which contains the client dlls, nor are they releasing the maps yet.

  4. Re:Who gets the money? by doodzed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am buying it through steam not only because they get more money, but also because I trust steam will be around for a while. So when I am at my parents visiting, I can install steam..... I have all my valve games in a couple of hours. No digging to find reg code, find the cd, find the updates......

    With steam, all I need to have is my login.
    So far valve has done an ok job with steam considering they are the first people to do this.

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