Slashdot Mirror
Half-Life 2 Finally Activated
Thomas Scovell writes "After over half a decade of development, stolen source code debacle, a promised deadline that was missed by a year, and a feud between the developer and the publisher that is still in court, Half-Life 2 has finally started to activate for those who have purchased online via Steam online or who grabbed the boxed version at the retailers that let it slip early. Go play!" Reviews are available via Gamespot, Gamespy, HomeLAN Fed, and IGN.
So this game is unplayable if i have no internet connection ?
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I was wondering if this was going to be 12.00 AM GMT, EST or PST. Looks like it was PST.
Duke Nukem Forever will be better !!
ahem...
It is taking an absolute age to unlock the game files.
Released: November 16th - Playable: November 21st.
Yeeeeeehaaaaaa!
So much for the rest of this college semester. Between this and Halo2, I'll be lucky if I even come in contact with a female during the next 3 months...
they are busy on ordering
I've seen a number of reviews say that Half-Life 2 is the best FPS of all time. After playing it even for only the hour that I have (I have a Social Psychology mid-term tomorrow morning ;), I can tell you that it is, hands down.
I have to commend Valve for doing it right. They didn't rush. They didn't over-hype. They didn't fuck it up. =)
I believe Valve deserves a round of applause. Half-Life 2 is a masterpiece.
*Applause*
It's not original at all. I've watched my roommate playing it, and it's the same old stuff with better graphics. Physics = eye candy.
Glad I passed on getting it now, because I buy games for their gameplay. Once the mods come along and the bargains hit I might consider it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No I can finally start breathing again. Have held my breath since source leak.
Leeeeeets play!
I remember all the previews and special edition magazines that had the same theme, "Who will come out on top: Halo 2, Doom 3, or Hal-Life 2?"
To be honest, I was rooting for Half-Life 2. I always respected Valve's commitment to their community in their support of their game(s). Halo 2 was more of the same (yet somehow more fun than the first). Doom 3 was pretty, but had the personality of a tray of ice cubes.
I guess what I am trying to say in my own biased way, is, I'm glad I was backing Half-Life 2. So far I am not disappointed.
And by the way, has anyone noticed the excessive use of exploding barrels yet? It's like City 17 is a giant nitro nitro plant and they can't seem to keep track of the product.
I started up Steam precisely at 3:00AM, and had it tell me it was 'unlocking' (decrpyting) the files for the game. Minutes later, I was in game.
I played about 45 minutes when I swore to myself that all I would do is the intro. The game is just plain amazing, and runs pretty damn well on my computer with detail turned up (this is a 1.5 year old laptop).
Been playing it for the last 2 hours, simply Amazing.
;)
AMD 2600/ATI 9700PRO and I'm getting 60-100FPS with 2X AA, at 1024x768. Smooth as silk, fast, and great.
Only problem, Its a tube chaser so far, just run and run and run. But damn if it dont look amazing.
BTW, she looks cute in those Jeans, Good job Valve..
I don't understand why downloading it through Steam costs $49.99 when you can get it from places like http://www.yesasia.com/ for $39.99. I thought using Steam was going to cut out the middle man and save the buyer money while also increasing Valve's profits. So much for their great idea of direct downloading...
I wish games makers would spend the time improving coding routines and working on gameplay than continually upping the specs required to play games. Bring back the zx spectrum I say!
What about those who paid a lot of money and ordered it over steam, to get it "before people buying it from retail stores"?
IF you pay for a premium service you should also get it. In this case everyone got it at the same time. I would be pretty pissed right now.
I know people who paid $75 for it, with the promise they would get it before everyone else.
Ive downloaded it, unlocked it and get the menu page but when i start the game it crasheds.
Oh the humanity! (and being in london, i was late for work as well (release 8am GMT) )
Official GOD FAQ.
...So I guess you're a Halo 2 fan?
Couldn't sleep and I was sick of infomercials so I decided I would try this steam thing...seeing as it was unlocked today. I dusted off the copy of HL1 a few months back and got aquainted with steam. Steam got HL1 down and playable on my machine in notime. They must be getting SLAMED. I have 4 meg down and steam (when used for HL1) saturated my bandwidth. As it sits now I bought the game and started downloading it at 4am. It's now 4:45 EST and I have 6% of HL2 downloaded. Ready to play in aprox. 321 minutes. So maybe this stint with insomnia will be spent watching the progress bar. If you are planing to buy HL2 as much as I'd rather the money go to Valve I would have to suggest you get a boxed copy....and leave Valve content server 18 alone...:P
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while installing Valve products, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Valve product that has run faster than its ID counterpart, despite the Valve products faster optimised code. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram installs windows faster than this 800 mhz machine can do Half-Life at times. From an ease of installation standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Valve is a "superior" company.
Valve addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Valve product over other faster, cheaper, more stable games.
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
I'm assuming since you can download this version that the music is no longer on the cd. The music for the first one was excellent and key during parts of the game so I hope they don't have bad compressed MP3s, or some other proprietary compression, for the music this time around.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/screen s_6113062.html?page=46 n s_6113062.html?page=17 n s_6113062.html?page=10 n s_6113062.html?page=7
n s_6113062.html?page=4 n s_6113062.html?page=12
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/scree
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/scree
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/scree
water doesn't look so bad neither::
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/scree
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/scree
I was on #halflife2 on IRC for the countdown. Then I started playing. In the hour that I have played Half-Life 2, the only thing I can say is that I am in complete awe.
First off, If you've played CS:Source, you don't even know the half of it. Half-Life 2 is one hell of a single player. It manages to scare you in broad daylight. It scares you not just by monsters, but by the dystopia/authoritarian thing going on. It's really freaking scary.
The voices, facial movements, physics, "Civil Protectorate", it's all awesome. After just one hour, I've forgiven Valve. Half-Life 2 is just as revolutionary as the original Half-Life was. You really have to play it to believe it. I can't even begin to describe in words the euphoria and the terror it strikes in your heart.
Not bad for a company's second game.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
Arggghh!! I was too "honest" to call in sick today! The rod up my butt must have a rod up its butt. And I'm roleplaying tonight so I only get two hours when I get home to enjoy the goodness. (I swore to myself years ago never to forgo human interaction for a computer game. I haven't decided where online gaming lies yet).
Is there any?
:-/
I didn't play HL1, but think that while the single player mode is great and pretty, I fear it gets worn out pretty quickly?
A major factor when I buy games is nowadays is the amount of replayability.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Looking at the boards on http://www.halflife2.net/forums and http://www.hlfallout.net/ it seems as though quite a few people can't play because of numerous bugs.
I didn't read the license, but nothing that I know of prevents you from buying it, deciding it's shit, and selling/trading the password to your Steam account (which has a resettable e-mail address associated with it.) ... The new "owner" can then change the password and e-mail address, and delete all the friends (or, hell, even keep them, haha!) and add his or her own.
I feel like I am truly alive for the first time ever. It's like my life itself was finally fully activated at midnight PST on November 16th, 2004. Infanthood, toddlerhood, preschool, elementary school, middle school, puberty, high school, these were just pre-loads.
It runs on DirectX, no GL support at all.
And the opening train ride took less than 10 minutes! Thank you, Valve!
So mygame kept crashing loading the very first level. I wanted to cry. Not knowing what to do, I did the only geek thing I could think of: I simply posted my tears on Shacknews. But within minutes a Valve guy showed up asking if he could help. Then Erik Johnson himself popped in and started troubleshooting. I practically had Valve guys fighting over who could help me fix the problem first. And all this at like 2am in the morning. That's some pretty sweet support kids: they tracked ME down instead of me having to beg them to help.
Cough, crack.
Perhaps a terrible pun but apt in this case I think.
It would have been nice if valve had promised to release some form of patch if Steam was ever to go down but c'est la vie, I'm sure I can find one elsewhere.
A pentium pro with nt4? Wtf? That is not just obsolete, it belongs in a museum. Then he mentions windos on a 486. I often get confused about timelines but aren't we talking windows 95 here at best? Wasn't the first windows that wasn't as much a disaster as windows 3 pretty much pentium only?
So basically this is a troll/rant that a game takes time to install on hardware wich can't run it. If it is true, wich is always possible /. has a lot of idiots, then might it take a while because he is downloading it over his leet 9600bps modem?
Anyway he wants a reason to buy valve games? Because half-life was one of the best first person shooters ever and still counts as a benchmark for every other fps out there. Only a tiny handfull of games can even compare. They also shown enormous commitment to maintaining their product. Where most fans fall down on their hands and knees in thanks when their game company fixes bugs that should have been spotted in beta, Valva has continued to upgrade half-life at no cost over the original purchase price. Sure it also allowed them to sell expansion packs but nobody forced you to buy them. You still got the improvments if you updated.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The only reason I am typing this is because during the first 30 min my system locked while playing - I had to hard reset. No big deal (I am one of those dangerous overclockers ;)
But *WOW* This game has already destroyed Doom 3 in the FIRST HALF HOUR OF PLAY!
You will excuse me, I have uh, important uh, stuff to uh, go and do now...
*starts steam again*
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Don't bother.
As for replayability being your major factor for buying games. What a weird choice. Do you only watch movies wich you can watch over and over again?
But of course the answer is simple. No half-life 2 is not a endless replay game. It is heavily story based and once you know the story you can only improve your "score" except it doesn't keep a score.
Go play tetris.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Unfortunately doesn't there seems to be any plans on releasing it for linux, at least they claim so here
It looks like they also unlocked the port of the original half-life on the new Source engine as well. I am downloading that as we speak.
...did they have to release HL2 on my girlfriend's birthday.
Now I'll be looking over a candle in a romantic restaurant picturing gordon freeman's beardy mug.
I wonder if macdonalds would do...
steam kicked in at 2:04 CST (according to my PC) and the game was decrypted/enabled by 2:15.
the feel of it is just right.
(if you get the great idea to whack the combine soldiers with the telephone be prepared to run)
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
DirectX only my friend. Sorry
Visit www.doc2pdf.net for a free, no need to register,
I've been playing for like two and a half hours straight, possibly an hour more than is healthy for me and I'm about halfway through the (first, only?) river-runner level.
I have that unpleasant "I've stopped playing but my world-sense is a bit skewed still" feeling that accompanies all good games. So: Half Life 2 is a winner. It's fun, kind of frantic, you know.
I haven't yet seen what I liked about half life 1 yet apart from the great dialogue.
And a final thought: nice movies leave me with a 'the world is fantastic' feeling, but games never do. They're all conflict-based and quite negative. Someone should release a happy, immersive game where nothing goes wrong. Just to see what happens.
- can't play cos they are at work
- can't play cos they don't believe in online activation
- can't play because their machine plays slower than a ZX81
Me? I'm at workMy Portfolio
No, I guess not. The problem is that Half Life 2 is using Direct X. And porting it to Open GL is a huge task. The customerbase that would buy the Linux version is to small to cover the costs.
If I had the skills, I would surely vouluntair to help out porting for free.
Wouldn't that be something, to have a Linux Game Porting community, helping software companies port to Linux?
Anyhow, it would be a very nice thing to have both Doom 3 and Half Life 2 for Linux, then I wouldn't need the secondary NTFS-formated hard drive.
And what the hell am I going to do with that? Does it at least run in wine/cedega? Or does it look like this:
- Half Live 2: 59$
- Windows: 250$
- Having to repartition harddisk: fuck you.
Even the additional cost of windows (Microsoft-Tax), is very discouraging, but the general behaviour of said operating system raises the cost even more. I can't for instance just install windows on the third disk.
--
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Cedega should support it if it doesnt already, last time i looked it almost ran counter strike source fine and it might run it in cvs by now. Its entireyl OpenGL i heard to help combat hacks (i hear opengl is easier to work with when writing hacks?). Either way great fucking job been playing it last 2 hours its incredible. I feel this is a valid reason to take off work tomorrow and my boss will understand.. im sure of it....yeah..
http://interserver.net/
I'm sorry, the game can't be that great if people stop after 1/2 hour, 1 hour or even two hours to come to slashdot and tell everyone about it ... when I get my copy, I won't be on /. for quite a while ...
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Hell yeh and all those race drivers should be forced to be ambulance drivers and fire truck drivers. Or maybe in the real world the skills required and the attitude to the job are different, like the difference between writing viruses and anti virus it's rare for someone to be good at both. Welcome to the real world some people are good at some things whilst being bad at another even in a realated field. If your cousin is real rather than a figment of your imagination he needed help anyway if losing a death match sent him into catatonic despair, but more likely he is fake and you have the problems.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Lol, tell me what you think when you here those magic words in this amazing world. You can quite literally play with anything and everything in the world... i was flapping shutters and knocking on the walls... just wow!
and i'm not even experiencing in full glory
800x600 med settings
on FX5200
There is no
No.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Now that people with normal rigs are playing this, I have to decide if I should buy the game or not, based on my current system.
:\
P4, 2.0Ghz, 1024meg of pc2700 ram (cheapy stuff), gf4ti4600.
Will I be able to play HL2 and enjoy it?
Also, which do you think would run better (I'm sure someone out there knows what this game likes), 2.0Ghz w/ 1024ram or 2.666Ghz w/ 512 ram? I ask cuz I can't seem to OC with the new stick of ram I chucked in, but I can without it
STill have exams, have to wait till saturday to play anyway, nooo!
printf("Goodbye cruel world!\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b");
...0....-1....-2.....-3
Nothing. Whatever strategy Valve may have planned (speculating) seems to be working beautifully. Craploads of fake HL2 files on ed2k which are mostly porn site rips, but some which are other games disguised as HL2 - usually UT2004. The Steam crack is actually nothing but a virus and there is nothing but the beta to be seen on torrent sites.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
As soon as the server is taken down, no one will ever be able to install HL2 again.
Thus copyright on HL2 is forever.
And as soon as they want their users to switch to HL3 they can pull the plug on HL2.
Well, it's against Valve's EULA to sell Steam accounts, but of course that doesn't stop people from doing it.
Though there have been many reports about people on Ebay getting burned with fake/fraudlent Steam accounts.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Now it has taken ALMOST 2 hours since this came online, and no other stories in slashdot coming. Is this coincidence, or is there some correlation between those too.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
???
What the fuck are you smoking.
It will take about 6-18 hours to be cracked, spread via irc and then on torrent.
Fakes and "crack" viruses exist for every game, but of course if the real game isnt released, you can only find fake files...
when did YOU search for it, btw, and why? (as you are such an expert in searching for warez HL2?)
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Now I'm here, can't lie about needing to go home, and when I get home, I have to clear up the devastation in 3 rooms redecorating causes to get to my PC to be able to play.
Life can't get much worse than this.
Oh, hang on, feeling faint... have a headache.... spots before my eyes.... erm... bye... need to find my boss and go the hell out of here.....
/me goes to find water to put on forehead to look sickly.....
Although I commend Valve for helping out should they happen to catch a user in trouble on an un-official forum, I feel that I should point out that I hope this doesn't become an expected thing.
Most developers have a support forum / e-mail where users can be helped as quickly as possible. It doesn't benefit tech support if they have to start roaming other forums. In fact, it's the proverbial slippery slope - today it's Shacknews, tomorrow it may be some more obscure forum, and next week they're hiring chinese-capable staff to start hunting down lost users on chinese forums.
Official support should certainly not be expected, but in my humble opinion not encouraged either, on un-official forums/mailing lists/etc.
Should a user still want to post in an un-official location, then the support they should expect to get is peer-support. If those peers can't resolve the issue, then the right place to go is the official support areas, rather than wondering why the developer isn't reading the thread.
Just my 2 cts, as I've been there.
This came up for me last night when I purchaced HL2. I created a new Stream account for HL2 and the other mods it provided. I already have 3 or 4 HL licenses, so I wanted to set it up so that I could use one of the retro ones along side the new one for LAN parties.
This is a big downside of the system, if the user is not aware of this. I own HL and HL2 licenses, but having them both in the same steam account means you can't play head-to-head using them.
Yeah! Halo 2, WoW Beta, and now Half-Life 2! Say good bye to my GPA!
What's this GPA you are talking about? Grand Pheft Auto? Is it any good?
TC - My Photos..
Remember the train ride at the very beginning of Half-Life (1) ?
The security guy, Barney, welcomed you saying: "You came in late, this morning, Mr. Freeman, but finally, you're there..."
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance." Isaac Asimov
Are they staggering when and where they unlock it? Its still locked for me...
Bah, waited this long, I think I can handle one more day.
That's always the way; every copy protection scheme is cracked, usually within days, so it only hurts the legitimate users.
My bet was on Duke Nukem Forever :-P
Anyone else getting motion sick from playing this?
I've played for about an hour and had to take a break because I was getting motion sickness for some strange reason.
And before anyone gets out their "Jump to Conclusions" mat, I've been playing CS:source for about a month and regular CS before that, played all through Doom3 and finished it, am on the WoW beta, just re-finished playing HL1 to get me back in the mood of the storyline...all without any problems.
Perhaps it's just me...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
The software will become incompatible with the OS of the future and the game servers dead long before somebody finds a way to work around Steam activation. This game is way too popular for anybody to ignore this possibility you speak of.
Doom still runs to this day because plenty of people have provided source ports that allow it to run in Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc. and have transformed it into a client/servel network play model to work in TCP/IP as opposed to 1994's IPX, modem and null cable connections.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
This theory you have could be applied to any number of consumer commodities. If we lived life by your theory we would never leave our house, we'd all have stockpiles of gasoline and generator parts and we would live a very different lifestyle than we do now. Yes, game companies have closed shop in the past, and people have been burned on buying their games to find they have no servers to authenticate with or play on. I've had this happen to me and it is one of the most basic principles of life. All of life is a gamble. If you don't gamble you don't live life to its fullest extent.
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
"completely killed Counter-Strike." If you were playing Counter-Strike, you have an internet connection. Quit bitching just because they're trying to protect their investment from people who steal software. As someone who has been playing HL2 for about 3:30 hours already, I can say it's honestly worth the $50.
Get over yourself, basically.
Games have had copy protections that legitimate users have had to crack for ages. From the uncopyable Lemmings disk, to these endless serial numbers(Yes, I lost the cd cover for half-life, does that make me a bad person?), to two or three CD games which demand that you keep the CDs around, even if you have a huge hard drive.
Only suckers play the games the way they've been told. A life without sorting through CDs is a good one, let me assure you of that.
It's been a long time.
Is it Valve's fault if you cannot read?
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
It's because ever since that creepy mannequin arm in Tresspasser, I've yearned to be able to bitchsmack dinosaurs with more and more realistic physics!
It's been a long time.
its safe to assume everyone with a good pc has a internet connection, but its not safe to assume anyeone with a $200+ video card has a dvd player?
You know, that is one of the things that make playing games in Linux most enjoyable. No stupid use of CDROMs as dongles. Doom3- don't need the CDs after installing. NeverwinterNights- again don't need the CD. All the Loki games- don't need the CD. Then there is a number of games that don't even have cds.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Well in case anyone was wondering it did speed up. Most I could get was between 200-250K. However once the files reached 52% I was able to load up the game and play. It is a SMOOTH game. I can't wait to see the mods that come out for this. So basically having bought the game at 4am I was playing it at 6:45 or so. Not so bad once the connection got up to speed. I'm off to newegg to put together a better box. Any suggestions?
Check what your system's doing - if it's anything like what others are seeing (and me), and it's preloaded right there'll be practically no network traffic and your HDD will be thrashing like a mad thing as it decrypts. :/
If that's not the case... you need to restart Steam more often in the future so it picks up the updates.
Haven't I read this story before? I blame the editors.
So long dental plan!
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
I unlocked HL2 four hours ago and then happily fired it up to play, only to be faced with a the updating Half-Life2 window. The ready to play countdown made it as far as under 100 minutes. I am sitting here with tears in my eyes watching the ready to play time count up insted of down. 126 minutes and climbing.
GPA??? I think you meant GTA!! You were listing new games right?
Half Life CD has been sitting on my shelf for the last few years... maybe now there's a sequel out, it's time for me to play it?
Oh, like say the DMCA?
Wow! They set the game in a fully rendered Milton Keynes! Yikes!
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
But don't worry, he respawns!
6:15 am opens steam =|
6:17 am unlocking game and taking a shower =O
6: 45 am half life 2 logo comes up =)
6: 46 am menu screen =..)
6:50 am starts a new game =D
6:52 am starts playing =..D
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
7:30 am craps his pants =|
8:02 am takes another shower and gets ready to go to work =(
9:32 am posts on slashdot
The game is very very fun. The first 30 minutes I spent just throwing things around, breaking windows, and launching various objects via teeter-totters.
Steam worked flawlessly, and I hope Valve has a tremendous success with it. Kudos to Valve for designing a good copyright protection system.
Oh, I know this can piss off a bunch of people who are so concerned about those poor souls without Internet connection (ps. Netzero still has a 10 free hours/month deal), but the system rocks.
Up yours Vivendi, RIAA, and all others who don't think that distribution via the net is not profitable. Valve got all of my $$ this time around.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
There's no need to read GameSpot's review: just take IGN's score and subtract 0.5.
amazingly, it goes for 39 here in germany. Thats about 6-10 euros cheaper than other games, including the not so new Ranbow Six 3 and not so hot Real Cockpit (FS rip-off). I hope the other publishers can take the hint: profit through numbers and price level != quality level.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
yes, its not illegal, its just hard. Especially for those 'leet' 'programmers' that can do barely more than hooking a debugger into a games process to find out which function to replace to remove the cd check. If you haven't heard it yet, the steam content is decrypted. 'Pretenting' to be steam won't cut it, kiddo ...
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
In germany, where I life, I only saw DVD versions of the game. I'm suspecting I might have shelled out 40 for a fake version, though .. well I'll see tonight.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
No... It really is THAT good. Unfortunately I'm at work now and only got to play it for 5 hours or so... But they're not kidding. It was well worth the wait.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
sorry, I meant 'encrypted' not 'decrypted'. I'm just sooo excited, forgive me.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
"Valve hates linux users, they have publically said this."
Got a link to a quote from someone at Valve saying they hate Linux users?
Did you purchase the download option? Obviously you did. The game is well over 1 gb in size, so I don't know what you expect. It took me about 8 hours total to download it. Of course, I have been using Steam for months now and it has slowly been downloading different parts of the game for the last few weeks. As soon as I get home tonight, it'll be ready for me to go.
Moral of the story is don't blame Steam for your impatience.
While its hard NOT to see it coming, I am one of probably thousands of PAYING customers that can't play the game because 'authentication' servers are overloaded.
I just forked over 100 dollars for the CE version of hl2 and am now greeted by a wonderful 'subscription pending' screen that has been sitting there for over half hour. "sorry for any inconvenience they may cause". Just another example of the paying customers getting royally screwed over.
THANKS VALVE!
i should have been more clear, i bought the DVD!
That is why i am so impatient, i am used to ripping open the packaging and start playing the game! That is how it should be i think.
Yeah ripped CounterStrike out and stomped that sucker flat........2.919 BILLION player mintues a month is a dead game.
I'm sure Valve will be fine without your $49.00 Bronze package fee. You will be missing out on a wonderful game experence. Enjoy TuxRacer!
If you're paying $250 for windows, you're the sucker, buddy.
Jay | http://oldos.org
On behalf of all the women at this guy's college: Thank you Half Life 2, thank you Halo 2.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Is there a facility in STEAM to create CDs of the game(s)? There's nothing in the official FAQ. I'm tempted by STEAM (even though it's probably overloaded), but if I can't make a hardcopy, I'd rather wait until I head out to the mall. Then the decision is DVD edition or CD?
Here come da fudge!
Hahahaha Steam is so slashdotted...
Oh wait... maybe it's not slashdot, I suppose it's *MAYBE* possible it's the million people trying to download multimegabyte files to activate HL2?
Naaa... gotta be slashdot.
No seriously. ... (shit where's greys anatomy when I need it)... and makes your motion senses aggree with you visual senses preventing the motion sickness.
If you watch a lot of people playing that kind of came you will see them swaying there heads about, almost like there trying to look behind the monitor, this causes fluid to move around your
Try it, next time your about to run around a corner or turn, tilt you head in the direction of movement and swaying you body that way a little helps too.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I've only seem the HL2 preview movies, and it kicks shit.
Pushing tables infront of doors to make them harder to open, only for the tables to get thrown out of the way (knida GTA3++), beats, it's dark, nothing happned for a while, bet there's some stupid hole that a load of spiders are gonig to come out of. I would be scared, by doom3 if I coudln't predict almost every doom 3 monster before it arrived.
Doom 3 also bragged that there engine could work with deforming objects, now If I could blast my way through walls, instead of following a very linea route then Doom 3 would be much more fun.
I havn't even finished doom3 yet, and I've got time to post here, can't you tell I'm gripped.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Had the same problem. Solved it with a small dose of THC. No more motion sickness, instant automatic overclocking, and the most realistic game experience ver.
Expecting people to pay what they could reasonably expect to pay in the stores, is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. Norton / Symantec do something similar.
I think the key benefit here is that this method of software distribution supports someone who seeks instant gratification.
The other day I needed a copy of Norton AntiVirus, so I went to the Symantec website, purchased, and had it up in running in less time then it would take for me to drive to the store and back.
While doing the same thing with Half-Life 2 might be a bit more challenging due to bandwidth constraints, the same general idea applies.
Priced the same, for time convenience.
Are you saying that buying the DVD still requires a net connection for single player ?? :(
This is exactly the same reason that I bought my copy via Steam, particularly reason #6 (and convinced a few friends to do the same).
On a side-note, while waiting for HL2 to download (man, that 4GB sure took its sweet time) I decided to play some Counter-Strike. I missed the Counter-Strike train, so last night was my first time playing it. Ever. No, seriously. Well, suffice it to say that I got it handed to me; 5-16 in the hour that I played. I took me 3 rounds just to figure out that I could buy other weapons.
Hey! Where are you going with that? Give me back my geek badge! What if I promise, I'll never go to bed again without playing an hour of HL2?
Disclaimer: This comment was generated by a Flock of Trained Microsoft Programmers for Aqua_Geek.
Use Amazon, dude =)
Subtotal of Items: $52.99
Shipping & Handling: $4.98
Promotional Certificates: -$34.98
---------
Total for this Order: $22.99
Received the game today
By the time it comes out, Duke Nukem Forever will be a Holodeck game
They haven't passed a law yet saying that it's illegal to build a program that pretends to be steam.
Oh really?
With the activation of prepurchased Half-Life 2 copies today, computer consultant billing rates are expected to skyrocket for the short term. Market demand is expected to drive the rates for available computer consultants to new highs, well exceeding those of the "dot-com" era.
Why, you might ask? In a market economy, goods and services are priced based on available supply and the demand for those goods and services. With hordes of computer consultants electing to "take a little time off to play Half-Life 2," consultants will be able to pick and choose among potential clients and price their services properly to compensate them for foregoing the thrills of Half-Life 2 for a few weeks.
Many political jurisdictions have passed laws designed to protect innocent consumers from predatory pricing after natural disasters. However, State and local "price gouging" laws are not expected to affect this market-based price rise, as the shortage of available consultants is not expected to qualify under the laws' terms. Politicians, reacting to constituents' concerns, are expected to quickly attempt to change the laws to treat "loss of email and/or web services" as a disaster.
HAve you seen the version of Doom3 someone got running on Voodoo2 SLI cards. First of all, pretty amazing achievement, but second of all, it shows exactly what you are talking about: blocky level design that really looks a great deal like a Quake2 level. However, that just isn't fair. Yes, Doom3 does cut down on the geometery to make the best use of bumpmaps and lighting. And the effect is astonishingly good looking. It may be a very limited SORT of good looking, but there is no doubt that the actual in game effect is incredible. The hell levels are particularly cool, as is the throbbing instestine stuff.
That's the normal price for PC games. At least when you buy from the right retailers (Media Markt).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Any decent AAA game has extensive modding capabilities and Epic have done well in encouraging mod-makers to expand upon UT2004. The NVidia-sponsored "Make Something Unreal" competition has resulted in some really impressive mods, from Alien Swarm to Red Orchestra and UnWheel, Clone Wars add to the fun. Hell - there is even a Golf game built on UT2004. Doom III will get it's top quality mods given time but for now UT2004 will continue to command my Linux gaming attention.
And while I spare a thought for Half life 2, I'm not going to fret too much. If Valve doesn't want my gaming money I'll continue shovelling cash towards Epic, id software, Grimm Software, Garage Games, Epic Interactive, Running With Scissors and any other company out there who feels that Linux gaming is worth the trouble.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Jeez, if you want five years to sound impressive, everyone knows you need to say "a twentieth of a century", or "a two-hundreth of a millenium".
WWJD? JWRTFA!
I've been robbed. Seriously. $55 plus tax, and I can't even take the damn thing back to the store, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK.
Why this piece of crap didn't come on a DVD I simply don't know.
DOOM3 worked flawlessly out of the box with no need to mess with any of the settings. I suppose it was too much to assume that Valve, with one game under its belt, could actually make a second game that worked.
I am so seriously ticked off by this worthless piece of crap.
This does not effect me anymore, But I am still very annoyed by it. You cannot get broadband everywhere, so those with a dial up connection(me a couple months ago) will have to connect just to install the game. They will have to go through the hassle of creating a steam account(which takes a while to do on a dial-up) just to play the single player game. By all means impliment this in the multiplayer, but the single player should not require that.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone complaining about the lack of a manual. I was looking forward to reading that in the bathroom at work today to hold me over until I can get home to install the game.
hmm ... hab im Media Makt gekauft, deswegen war ich ja erstaunt das dort eines der billigsten aktuellen spiele gleichzeitig auch das neuste und beste ist ;)
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
When I try to launch the Half-Life 2 executable on its own, I get an error that it can't find filesystem_stdio.dll, which indeed does not exist anywhere on my hard disk. There is a filesystem_steam.dll, though. How helpful!
Is this what I have to look forward to? Buying a game and being able to maybe play it from time to time, whenever their servers happen to be up and not too terribly busy? Way to go, guys.
I can understand requiring Steam for multiplayer. Fine. No problem at all with that. But I should not need to connect to their servers every time I want to fire up the game on my own.
The first hour of my experience with this game was incredible. So far, the second hour of my experience is frustrating, annoying, and completely dissatisfying.
Open the PDF manual that comes with the game, print as desired. I never cease to be amazed at how much whining goes on here.
You people are acting like a bunch of noob users. "I can't believe I have to push two keys at the same time to make that bold!... Why don't they include a bold key with the program?"
This whole cd release thing has got to go. Modern releases should all be DVD. A DVD-rom will run all of $20 or so. If you can shell out $50 for a video game then I don't think another $20 will hurt that much.
The primary reason I preloaded is because I didn't want to screw with swapping cds when the time came.
Two questions then:
1) Does this mean that it not only needs to check an internet database during installation, but also every time a game is loaded up (and closed, to affirm a time frame)?
2) Does this mean that you can't install a copy on your brother's computer for LAN play (i.e., you and your little brother have to buy their own copies just to play versus each other)?
People can argue about how under strict legal interpretation, you and your brother should have to buy their own copies to play against each other, but in actuality, I feel that that's pretty restrictive. Conversely, LAN-enabled games often were pretty consistent in allowing players to LAN with a single copy, even when the capability existed (heck, comparing CD keys could have been done any time LAN and CD Keys were both used).
So, if that's the case, it's one less reason for me to buy this game. If it's not the case, somebody tell me please!
The dull thud-crunch sound of the Half-Life crowbar smacking someone or something on the head.
Julie Moult is an idiot.
That implies that one comes with the game. The cds are in my car so I do not know for sure either way. Every comment I have seen from Valve when asked about a manual simply said that one would not be included and that you could buy the official prima Strategy guide.
If anyone knows for sure whether there is a PDF manual on the cd please post a reply. If that is the case I will run out to my car to get the cds. If that is not the case I will do without and still love the game, but I will not buy a prima strategy guide. I agree that there is far too much whining on Slashdot, but in this case Valve has made some questionable business decisions and the whining is legitimate. It does not take away from the game itself though(unless you are on dial-up).
there's no doubt that the die hard hl freaks are going to rush to the stores and pick up their collectors edition but you have to wonder how the market in general will take this very late release, especially since halo 2 was able to debut before hl2
Get your torrents...
Shorter version: they didn't port DirectX over to Linux, so their game must not be fun to play.
I wish I could say that they treat their customers, but they've always treated me great. They respond to email questions personally, troubleshoot issues, take suggestions for features, etc. They figure Linux clients aren't worth the significant amount of time and hassle they could be spending on things like supporting 64bit processors or getting an Xbox port out. Yeah, other companies do it. They don't. Oh well. And fuck Bungie for not releasing a PS2 version of Halo!
I actually nearly did. The real scary part is that I don't see anything wrong with the.
BTW, I think the only way to describe this game would be as "the Lord of the Rings of computer games".
Just absolutly epic.
I agree with you. I cannot log on to Steam at the moment either and I can't understand why I should have to do so in order to play a game I have already paid for AND which has been unlocked! I would urge all of you out there who are having similar problem to write a letter of complaint to Steam - or can someone in America start a class action suit? Seems like a rip-off to me! Alas, this is all no doubt covered by the small print somewhere which I have signed up to...
http://web.uvic.ca/~mwquinn/hl.jpg
I never got around to getting this through Steam, and the systems sounds like it's really staggering right now; does anyone know if the boxed version comes with HL1-Source and CS-Source, or are those Steam-only?
Actually, it's amazing for about the first hour. I was blown away by every aspect of the game. Then I got to the damn hoverboat thing...
Another hour later and I'm still stuck driving around this stupid hoverboat, and I'm BORED. I'm tired of driving this damn thing around, it was fun for a few minutes but now they've dragged it on and on and on and... please NO MORE DAMN HOVERBOAT!
Silly me, I thought the sequel to one of the best FPS games of all time would have been another FPS, and not a damn driving game.
10 hours since activation, not bad guys!
3 95 1
:)
http://www.izonews.com/release.php3?releaseid=9
Check your local torrent listings for showtimes.
and yes, before anyone points it out, there are various issues and it's being nuked, though they are working on a patch..
In a Steam FAQ I read that you should be able to play offline without connecting up to Steam - you just need to disable your internet connection before you start up the Steam program. Alas, when I try this I get the message 'Offline mode is unavailable because there is no Steam login information stored on this computer. You will not be able to use Steam until you can connect to the Steam network again.' Why Steam occasionally loses my local login information I have no idea. Makes me want to LET OFF STEAM!!
I just wanted to say that a game server and a game are completely unrelated when it comes to porting games. A game server is a very easy thing to have on multiple platforms, but a game is not. The other thing I wanted to point out is that the PS2 just doesn't have the RAM to make some games fun. If Halo had been on the PS2, then you'd need to stop and load alot and the textures would be horrific. Halo on XBox cached a bunch of stuff to the hard drive, because it was a standard piece of the machine. The hard drive on the PS2 is very limited in exposure comparitively.
-]Phreak Out[-
I PAID FOR THE GAME. I AUTHORIZED THE GAME AND UPDATED STEAM (ANOTHER 20MB IN ADDITION TO THE 5 CD'S.) I UPDATED HL2 TODAY (ANOTHER 20MB) SO I COULD FINALLY PLAY IT. I CLOSED MY CONNECTION (I DO NOT LIKE MY GAMING PC ONLINE.) I DOUBLE, TRIPLE, QOUDROUPLE, ETC, ETC, CHECKED MY SETTINGS SO I COULD PLAY IN "OFFLINE" MODE. I CANNOT. THE EXACT ERROR IS ...
Steam - Error
This operation cannot be completed when Steam is in offline mode.
I will never buy VALVe software again, I don't care if they make a game where Trent Reznor comes to my house to party while Britney Spears* gives you head if you buy the game.
*fill in your hot chick/guy
AGAIN, I PAID FOR THE F'IN GAME.
I purchased the HL2 game today, but I was so eager that I installed it on my work computer just to see that it works.
.jpg format:
And now that I got home to _really_ play it on a less-than-lousy computer, steam just tells me I'm not allowed to play it because I already registered the cd-key once.
Then going on to Steam support, I see this:
----
You must include the following within the message in
1. A picture of the actual game CD.
2. A picture of the HL/CS packaging which clearly displays the CDKey number.
3. A picture of the sales receipt.
NOTE: Please allow up to 2 weeks to receive a reply from Sierra / VU Games
----
I had been looking forward to this game for 1 1/2 year. Now I either have to buy it _again_ to actually play it, OR borrow a digital camera from someone, pray that I can still find the receipt, and wait two weeks...
BEWARE!
actually, they dont specifically hate linux users, they hate anything that isnt windows.
What, the DMCA makes pretending illegal, now? Round up the cast of Sesame Street, they're all going to jail!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You got it - I'm waiting patiently...thought I'd check on slashdot to see what the heck is going on - looks like we're hosed for now. Oh well, back to HALO 2.
If you would read my post carefully, I actually said that it sounds like a great game.
Ah. Should I look before or after the part where you say "Half-Life 2 would have to be a fucking miracle of innovation in FPS to make me want to play it, but it doesn't look like that to me. Everything I've read makes it sound like the same-old FPS with better graphics, better AI, and the like. I think the IGN review even explicitly says something like "there's little innovation per se, just raising the bar on current gameplay." ???
I never mentioned anything about DirectX. Perhaps you'd like to take this into some discussion about the technical merits versus demerits of DirectX versus other things, but that's another can of worms entirely.
Given that the entire rendering engine is built on DirectX, I would think that you MIGHT want to mention DirectX at some point.
Maybe there's too many Valve fans here to step back and think that maybe, just maybe HL2 isn't the greatest FPS ever made. Is this sentance supposed to come before or after the sentance where you say that you aren't saying that Half-Life 2 is fun to play?
It's bunch of little things that, taken together, lead me to really be angry at Valve.
Let's see: they don't spend oodles of extra time and money to design a second rendering engine for a platform with a fairly low market/return for all the effort. And, since they aren't a business, but are instead some sort of a magical fairy princess that should know better, this is bad on them. They actually talk to the OS on which their game is designed to run on, so bad on them again. Also, they are trying out a new system of digital rights, so extra super bad on them for not just giving it away with no copy protecting aside from a stealable CD key and annoying CD check.
Wait, what?
I know for sure, which is why I replied as I did. I've printed it, and sat on the toilet reading it even.
Glad to hear I am not the only one that does that.
This is insane I can't create a steam account. It keeps coming back connection refused. The support site for steam is logjammed and they aren't answering phone or email. This is getting very like the Far Cry debacle esp when you consider that there is a w...z out already that doesn't require this stoopid steam. So once agin the crooks are playing and legit customers are not.
You do not need to connect to the internet every time, once you are connected, if you check remember login and password, it will allow the game to run in "off-line" mode.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Which CD is the manual on? I can't seem to find it.
So like watching a plot driven movie, after the first time you can only really relive the moment. But the suprise is gone.
Some comedies like Airplane got so many gags that you might have missed some. A movie like the sixth sense you might watch again to see the build up to the brilliant ending. But basically you have been there.
Worse in a game like half-life is that you are there. You will have spotted every clue because if you didn't you wouldn't have gone passed it. In the sixt sense you might have missed the clues that something was wrong with the lead but if it had been a game you would have known.
It is the vital difference between a game and a movie. In the movie you watch the hero. In the game you are the hero. You might watch sherlock holmes and then go at the end "oh i never thought that would be the solution" but if you play sherlock holmes the games you either know the solution or you can't finish.
Half-life you can play 2-3 times depending on how much you like it but after that it is done. The multiplayer part was what kept it alive for so long.
As to your question, I play some games wich you can play again and again like say Transport Tycoon but some games I know you can only really play once. The heavier the story and the better the story the more likely I can only play it twice. The second time being years later and remembering the good times.
Even a game like Planescape Torment wich has a heavy story element but can be played in multiple ways can for me only really be played in one way. Some people can play through story choices in multiple ways but I like to play a hero, because in real life it is so hard to be one, and so will make the same choices during a second play.
So to me it is a choice. Story or replay. Pick one but not both. That is my choice. Yours may be different but I can tell you this. No story based FPS is going to appeal to you if you want replay. Half-Life least because there is no choice.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I bought it, i dont control my firewall, so it doesnt work. Its broke. EB Games is saying tuff nuts. Now i got software that doesnt work! What a POS software!
yeah the price is steep (think of this in $AUS dollars) but wait for a while when a patch or update comes out. Everyone with a *physical* copy will have to get a patch and install it.
the price is reflecting *the best most up to date build* not some snapshot weeks or months old.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Tell me about it. We just had a minor power cut (yes, I should have a UPS and will hand in my geek card forthwith) and when I tried to play again, it had logged me out of Steam. The servers are down (according to theinquirer.net) and might not be back up for three hours. No offline mode, no halflife2, no nothing. Thanks, Valve, not like you could have anticipated the server-melting demand, is it?
Who do I have to blow to get TF2?
No outcry about reviews being fixed? I am astonished. There was outcry about the halo2 reviews. Seems like a dubble standard to me.
So I went with Steam, where for US$60 (only AUD$73) I could get everything except the t-shirt. And I didn't have to wait until Wednesday either.
Oh, and rewarding Valve instead of Vivendi (manufacturer of fine buggy whips) was a nice bonus :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Is it me or does loading HL2 feel like the old days of loading Windows 95 from floppy disks?
(After downloading the 4.2 gig of cache files on a friend's cable...) Steam: Preloading complete. After the game is released you will be able to play it immediately! Me: Oooh, immediately. That sounds good. (Midnight PST) Steam: HL2 is released. Play now! Me: Ok... *clicks link* Steam: Unlocking Counterstrike Source Game Files... Me: This is highly irregular, but OK. *waits* (10 minutes later) Steam: Unlocking 3 HL2 game files... Me: This is more like it! HL2 here i come. (20 minutes later) Steam: C++ error (abort/retry/ignore) Me: WTF!? *restarts steam* Steam: Unlocking 3 HL2 game files... Me: *goes to eat dinner* (30 mins later) Steam: ...
Me: WTF?! *clicks on HL2...again*
Steam: Unlocking 3 HL2 game files...80% complete
(10 mins later)
Steam: HL2 is ready to play!
Me: I know you're probably lying, but OK. *clicks play*
Steam: *updates some shit*
Me: WTF, the game came out like 1hr ago
Steam: Preparing to play...
(5 mins later)
Me: Oh how you taunt me... *whimpers*
(Familiar Valve intro sound...logo appears)
Me: Plays HL2 for 4 hrs straight (at least they did something right)
Well, I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything other than empty promises from Steam, given that Mr Gabe Newell was the lead developer of it. Gabe should buy an Xbox and see how games are done online in the 21st century. That or hang himself in a toilet cubicle.
(After downloading the 4.2 gig of cache files on a friend's cable...) ...
Steam: Preloading complete. After the game is released you will be able to play it immediately!
Me: Oooh, immediately. That sounds good.
(Midnight PST)
Steam: HL2 is released. Play now!
Me: Ok... *clicks link*
Steam: Unlocking Counterstrike Source Game Files...
Me: This is highly irregular, but OK. *waits*
(10 minutes later)
Steam: Unlocking 3 HL2 game files...
Me: This is more like it! HL2 here i come.
(20 minutes later)
Steam: C++ error (abort/retry/ignore)
Me: WTF!? *restarts steam*
Steam: Unlocking 3 HL2 game files...
Me: *goes to eat dinner*
(30 mins later)
Steam:
Me: WTF?! *clicks on HL2...again*
Steam: Unlocking 3 HL2 game files...80% complete
(10 mins later)
Steam: HL2 is ready to play!
Me: I know you're probably lying, but OK. *clicks play*
Steam: *updates some shit*
Me: WTF, the game came out like 1hr ago
Steam: Preparing to play...
(5 mins later)
Me: Oh how you taunt me... *whimpers*
(Familiar Valve intro sound...logo appears)
Me: Plays HL2 for 4 hrs straight (at least they did something right)
Well, I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything other than empty promises from Steam, given that Mr Gabe Newell was the lead developer of it. Gabe should buy an Xbox and see how games are done online in the 21st century. That or hang himself in a toilet cubicle.
I actually have the cd here. Yes. Original. :)
Played trough it too, allthough, had to cheat in the final sequence on the mountaintop(with the two allosauruses(?)) to win.
10 years from now when their immoral activation grap has gone down.
I can still get my old quake cd and play that - but this stuff? I doubt it.
If the law allows me to do so i wish they go out of business if it doesn't i wish them... something else.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
You can play it on another computer that has steam installed and you logged in. You cannot, however sell the game. The game is tied to your steamID and it will not work with another steamID. So you _could_ sell the software but it won't work for anyone but you without a unique cd key.
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
http://www.steampowered.com/?area=cafe_directory&c ountry=US&state=NY has the info you seek.
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
Daemon-tools is my freind. :)
It's not illegal(where I live, at least), and it's a nice way to be able to not be at the mercy of game developers who refuse to make games easy to run!
It's been a long time.
Actually, they didn't, which was dumb. What they did do was get a court order to bar Valve from selling the game for a lower price over Steam, because that would have really hurt their retail sales.
What they reveal is the base level geometry: astoundingly simple.
You are sooo right.
A better visual experience, a better AI engine, a better, more immersive world, realistic physics, believable facial/body expressions, and a thoroughly intriguing story do not make a miracle of innovation.
Don't fight it, keep your money. You're definitely the one who is right.
Excuse me while I go on playing this crappy game.
Even though opinions seem very mixed, I thought I'd try Steam so as to encourage non-distributor (Vivendi) based game distribution (i.e. online). It took 3 hours to download Half-Life 2, but then it just hangs on the loading screen! Based on the amount of activity on my cable modem, I think it must not be done downloading, and they are just lying to me! http://steampowered.com/forums/ has no help on this (search is disabled!), and I can't find any option to email tech support. If I can't get any help on this within a few days from Valve, you can bet I'll never buy from them again.
A petition to Valve regarding Half Life 2 and STEAM: http://www.petitiononline.com/cg1d0915/petition.ht ml
Please tell everyone. And don't forget to sign, though! ;-)
greetz, Schattenreiter
Ever heard of BnetD then sir?
Roland Piquepaille and slashd