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Half-Life 2 Preloading from Steam: Part 2
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."
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?
Money for nothing, pix for free
It is cool that you can preload unreleased media in encrypted form, I like how they are doing this.
A bad joke would be that you preloaded thier source code a few months ago, but lets not go there.
I can't wait for a doom3 demo, let alone a half life 2 demo.
I am holding my breath for a Duke Nukem Forever (that is so true it isn't even funny)
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
No, it'd only be news if you were downloading the mod and you couldn't use it until next year...
stuff
Ok, so if you can download something but not use it right away it's "news" worthy. He! 3DReleams. You should release a single file for Duke4 every week. (Encrypted ofcourse)
It would be newsworthy if it was the news that describe the new business model of valve with steam, but it has been done a long time ago.
Or it would be newsworthy if it was the news that talks about the protocol behind steam, or the news that talk about some problem/success related to steam, or the people behind steam, or the community accepting/rejecting steam, or something new about half life2/cs/modding. But none of that.
It would be almost void of any interrest it it was the news that announce that the preloading of hl2 has started.
But no, this is the news that say that part2 of the download of people that are preloading hl2 has started.
No, your not right.
The downloading is free.
You only have to pay to play the game, once its been released.
It costs exactly nothing to preload. When the game is officially released, you pay Valve/VU (I think VU is their publisher anywayws) the same amount of money as you would for a box (blame the publishing contract), only you get it the second it's available instead of worrying about what store will have it when.
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.
Well, yeah, but you won't get it on a nice permanent medium (read CD\DVD) and not nice printed manual or box.
So you pay the same for less, but you get it earlier.
I think the current Slashdot quote has some relevance: "Dibble's First Law of Sociology: Some do, some don't."
Some people have an interest in this stuff, others don't. It is much easier to skip over an article that doesn't interest you than to find ones that do interest you, but are not posted.
I tend to think that if a topic is really that uninteresting, why bother with spending the time to read or to reply to the posts.
And probably not even earlier that retail if you know the owner of a small game store who will be getting boxed versions a day or two before the oficial release date.
If the official release date on steam and retail is the same, retail buyers may even have working copies before steam users... Assuming the boxed version doesn't require steam to authenticate before it'll start, otherwise Valve could hold back the retail buyers until the official date (and simultaneously royally piss off a lot of people.)
Why all you all bashing valve for this?! This has got to be the coolest way to get a game yet, you download it before its released, then pay and tada you got the game, no need to move out into the sunlight only to find the store hadn't gotten a copy yet, no need to install from crappy slow CD's which you have to change 4 times.. How can a geek NOT like this?!
There was a petition, but was completely ignored by Valve. Dedicated server should be available however.
Valve gets more from Steam, that's the reason they made it.
I'd prefer incentives like a lower price or an earlier release if they wanted to convince me to get the game without any physical stuff and using my own bandwidth (it'd probably take a few days of my bandwidth to get the game...). And there are some people who pay for their traffic, I bet they'd like some more incentives, too.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Valve starts to pre-load the Half-Life 2 Read Me file.
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?
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.
It's not the size of your stack that matters, it's how you push and pop