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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...
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...
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*
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...
...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.
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.
Replying to my own post incase anyone else has this same problem:
Apparently steam didnt download all the files. What files are missing varies from machine to machine. Valve is working on a fix.
Official GOD FAQ.
You sure he wasn't accidently playing Half Life : Source?
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.
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.
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!
...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.
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
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?
He probably only buys movies that he can watch over and over again, like most people I know. Normally when somebody wants to watch a once-only movie, they rent it or watch it in a theater. These are not generally options for games.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
The first Half-life only stuck around so long because there were so many mods for it.. Valve has surely made HL2 mod-friendly (I think the SDK has been out for at least a month), so if you're tired of the original game, there will be several more new ones you can play for free.
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/
...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.
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.
I'm pretty certain, especially given the complete lack of activity on my Steam Monitor during the unlocking process, that once the unlock starts, it's not going over the network. It's just the process of decrypting the game files, and that's wholly processor dependent. I literally saw no traffic between my computer and Steam during the unlock process, but I had a hell of a lot of hard drive activity.
That's actually a comparison that matches better how I think. Good replayability => fun a longer time => more value in the game since... well, you have fun a longer time. I'd be much more easily convinced of buying a game if I knew it would last for at least a few months rather than a weekend or two of hardcore gaming. But of course, I can have fun with short games too, and it's not the only deciding factor (and why I don't play Tetris all day long).
:P
I'm sure many game developers know this too, otherwise we wouldn't have all these games where the story have different endings depending on how you play the game. RTS games usually have different races you can choose for this reason too, with multiple strategies, and so on. I just think these steps should be taken to FPS games as well, if they haven't already (which was why I asked, I didn't know how HL1 and HL2 played here -- I have only played Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena, and UT2004 in the past, since their replayability comes from the multiplayer factor).
Complex missions, side quests, large open world, as much elements of randomness as possible, multiple character classes playing vastly differently compared to each other, yet fast-paced action with glorious graphics, and so on. Morrowind was kinda cool, but that wasn't really an FPS but an RPG. Too slow and boring for my tastes.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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
My mind couldn't comprehend installing HL2 on 90 machines, so I read it as "90 minutes" not once, but three times.
:P
Thanks a freaking lot for shattering my puny human psyche!
It's been a long time.
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?
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.
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.
"Valve hates linux users, they have publically said this."
Got a link to a quote from someone at Valve saying they hate Linux users?
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.
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.
Yes, there is a backup option. You select what you want to backup then it asks you what media you are going to put it on. It then creates files of appropriate size.
The cd you buy from the store is basically a backup of the steam cache files without a hl2 executable to run the game.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Typing "steam://backup/" into your browser's address bar is supposed to launch the backup utility.
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
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!
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.
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?
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.
You shouldn't have to do that. As long as your work computer isn't logged into Steam, you should be able to log into Steam and go right into HL2 once you install it.
After the install, Steam will start up and ask for the CD key. Just hit Cancel, since you've already registered the product with Steam, and you'll get a list of the installed games. When you choose HL2, it will connect to unlock the files, as the game is already registered.
I've just confirmed this by running an install on a second machine.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!