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Steam Registration Servers Overloaded
duckle writes "The Inquirer reports that "The World has come crashing down around Half-Life 2 players today, as Steam's authentication servers in Europe have died.", and deemzzzz_k writes "It looks like even Valve wasn't quite prepared for Half Life 2's popularity. HL2 requires registration to unlock the game and although the Valve/Steam homepage claims that it fixed registration issues the servers are still overloaded. Registration is "delayed" and temporarily unlocking the game takes 20-30 minutes over a 1.5MB DSL line." This seems to primarily be an issue for folks who bought the game from a store; I purchased the game via Steam and was playing at 12:15 am PST on launch day.
I'm glad when companies inconvenience their paying customers like this. Because, afterall, I'm sure the mandatory registration will prevent piracy. I just searched and see an activation patch already on IRC.
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
(For the record, I got a store-bought version).
At 7PM EST, I tried installing, setting up a steam account and unlocking the game with my CD Key. The whole process took about 3 hours.
The steam registration mostly returned back cause it couldn't even hit the master authentication server most of the night. Unlocking the game took between 45-60 minutes (on a fast cablemodem line).
Wasn't this expected though? Its like when a MMORPG releases and they can't handle the load. Do they just expect a few hundred people to get the (arguably) most anticipated game of the year on its opening day and the rest to just trickle in until Christmas??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I'd love to see people stop whining about this. I bought it, it arrived today and after install was unlocked and ready to go within 20 minutes (on dialip). I saw someone say on a forum the other day 'in the time it takes, go for a walk or something'. I mean honestly, is it really such a big deal? Do you really need to sue Valve?
Even the audio bug people are getting - it happens. No game can be perfect out of the gate. Give it a couple of days, and see if they sort it or a fix is found, but it's fucking pointless getting so angry about it and threatening to sue.
I think this problem underscores the frailty of requiring a product to be unlocked over the Internet. While it's one way of ensuring digital rights management, Valve could certainly have put in a backup system (a la similar to Microsofts 1-800 registration number).
-Teiresias
Bullshit on that one. It took my system 10 minutes to unlock - after 2.5 hours of attempting to contact the Steam servers. If it can't get the private key for the data, it can't really decrypt it.
Nothing like paying for a single player game months in advance and then not being able to play it. Valve has managed to delay the game even after the release!
I have a hard time believing Valve underestimated demand - they knew how many pre-orders they had from Steam, and they knew how many boxes shipped to all of the retailers. Retailers regularily share projections of what sales will be by week (especially since they have to know how much product to order). They had models to follow, and NPD and others track sales weekly, so they probably knew at a minimum they would do the same, if not better, than Doom3 in August.
The fact of the matter is, their system can't handle the load, plain and simple.
"It looks like even Valve wasn't quite prepared for Half Life 2's popularity."
Funny, they were more than prepared to take the money from customers before checking to see if they had enough servers to handle the load. When their distributor was filling orders, they could've come up with a rough estimate of what they expected to sell and made sure they had enough servers. Somebody just didn't do their homework.
Most of that unlocking time is the decryption and hard disk activity, not Steam network activity.
That is true, however it remains Valve's fault. The cd's basically just copy over the exact same files as in the preload that you could get from Steam... which means that when you stick the cd's in your drive you have to do two install processes, at least. First you have to disc swap install the cds (5) which takes awhile. Then you have to register for Steam. Then you have to wait while it decrypts everything, on top of unpacking the entire game just like a regular install does in a single step. The decryption and adding extra steps to the install process are quite a pain in the ass, let me tell you. It took me over an hour to get the game running, and I consider myself lucky because the only problems I had were closed ports, which I quickly fixed. Some of these other stories I've heard, especially with Steam registration, would absolutely enrage me if it had happened to me. We payed for this game, we expect it to at least PLAY!
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
Half-Life 2 is just a game. This attitude of "gotta have it right this second" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's not like people are throwing their money into a pit and never seeing results, it just takes a few extra minutes, hours, or days even. Come on, go outside, smoke a cigarette, pet a cat, read a book, reload slashdot, eat a sandwich, hit on a girl (or a guy) (or both). The servers will eventually be up and running, and you'll be able to unlock the secrets of the Combine in no time flat.
:-)
In case you're wondering, I pre-ordered it over Steam and it unlocked without any issues at 3 AM PST, three hours after the unlocking began. I still couldn't play it until after I got home from work and did the dishes and scooped the cat's litter...
And now it is even clearer that this is nothing but an insult to those who actually buy games instead of pirating them. Who are inconvenienced by this? Certainly not pirates. They download a cracked version anyway. This is apparently supposed to prevent piracy, but it obviously fails miserably!
No, the real losers here, again, are customers who actually paid for the game. They are the ones who need to connect to the Internet to activate the game. They are the ones who have been stuck all day, unable to activate the game, even for single player!
I held off buying Half-Life 2 exactly because of this online activation nonsense, and I was right in doing so. I hope to play the game, but I am very hesitant to give my money to a company like Valve, a company which lies to and deceives its customers, and adds hurdles that do nothing but inconvenience them, while pirates are completely unaffected.
If I sound like a troll, it's because I am extremely disappointed, and I am angry at Valve for being so stupid as to think that they can prevent piracy by forcing their customers to jump through hoops. I am angry because this is the way the industry is headed, and I don't like it.
Now games have started trying to decide for you which software to have installed (Doom 3 vs. various CD image programs), and they want you to activate it online, even for single-player... This is how the PC gaming industry will ultimately kill itself. By basically punching its customers in the face, while pirates remain unaffected.
Clever signature text goes here.
While I agree with you that it's a pain.. Why blame Valve? Isn't this just a reaction to rampant piracy in the community?
Sure.. it'll probably be cracked eventually, if not already.. but I dont see how we can blame Valve for trying to protect their product.
If CD keys were really effective, then we wouldn't be seeing this latest escalation.
I know.. I know.. just a 50 dollar game.. but I think it goes deeper than it simply being "Valve's Fault".
The requirements on the box say Internet connection required and I have no problem with that.
Unfortunately, my internet connection behind a (non configurable) firewall will not work with Steam.
They did not tell me that before I bought the stupid game, and now that I've opened it and cannot return it, I'm screwed!
I have no problem with authentication, but please give me some other method of authentication other than a program that will not work behind a firewall!
I hope I'm the minority, but don't plan on me buying anything else from these guys.
The deluxe version with HL2 t-shirt, HL 1:Source, and CounterStrike: Source came on DVD. I preordered a month ago and recived it yesterday.
IT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
Science is the Real TRUTH!
I was wary about Half Life 2's mandatory activation before this. My initial concern was what would happen if I want to load this game up again five years from now to play it again on a new PC? Will Valve be available to activate it? Apparently I was being too optimistic. Now I have to worry about whether I'll be able to activate it on the day that I buy it.
The whole thing struck me as very silly. If I'm playing online, then I don't have a problem with providing them a CD-key to connect to their server. But if I'm offline, why the hell should I have to register with them? I recently moved and my DSL isn't active yet, so I can't play this game. That's just silly.
My (horribly biased) suggestion: Valve should admit they screwed up, and release a patch that activated the game usnig a regular old CD key. If this doesn't get straightened out soon, they may be hearing the phrase "class action" a lot.
I really, REALLY don't care about CS:Source or any of the weeny online games that have been made with Half-Life, but I remember playing and enjoying the STORY of the first version.
And I can break out my install CD, install it and play it whenever I'd like, no internet required. Same thing with the game I play most often, Master of Magic, which is so old I don't even think there are any remaining fan pages online.
I'd like to play Halflife 2, but as long as it's associated with all that online registration and updating bullshit there's no way I'm going to bother with it. Basically, I want to buy a game and own it, not buy a game and install it and let it download 2GB of crap I don't want or need... but only as long as Valve keeps the serial validation servers running.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And every geek on here that screams and moans and whines about Microsoft activation ran out and bought the damn game the minute it was on the shelf, I'm sure.
Slashdotters: Walking the Walk and Mumbling the Talk since 1997.
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Some people have alluded to this already, but this just goes to show that "Digital Rights Management" present more of a violation of digital rights than a management system.
When I pay for a game, I should have access to play the game from the moment I own it until the end of time. The ability to continue playing the game should not rest in the hands of the company from which I purchased it.
Take for example, the current EFF battle against Blizzard Entertainment. If Blizzard decides to discontinue battle.net in the future, should legitimate paying customers be the ones who suffer? After all, they paid for a game with the expectation that Internet gameplay was one of the many features available to increase replay value. Thus, if they want to take matters into their own hands and create custom servers to allow continued online play, that should be their right.
The same goes for Steam. After all, when Half-Life first was released, they used Won.net to host their online gameplay. I cannot count the number of times that I was unable to play (despite having a legitimate CD-Key) because either the Master CD-Key server was down, unreachable, lagged, or just malfunctioning. Now they've moved to Steam and everyone who has the original Half-Life game finds their CD has been rendered obsolete!
For this reason, users should have the right to do more than simply "make a backup copy". They should have the right to crack, break, and generally f*** up copy protection. They should have the right to run private servers for online play. Bottom line -- they should have the right to decide whether or not they can continue normal use of a program which they purchased fair and square. After the money changes hands, the game belongs to me -- not the company. So get your grubby hands off, you greedy bastards.
This is what needs to happen in the Music industry. Cut out the middle-man, cut out the need for the RIAA, etc.
By the way, people preloading HL2 didn't have a problem playing it, only those who bought retail (Vivendi's domain) requiring activation.
The game, by the way, is amazing.
If they choose to make the retail, boxed, version require online activation it is their responsibility to ensure that their servers can take the load. If they can't that's their failing and their fault exclusively. No one forced them to do this, you can make plenty of money without a draconian copyprotection scheme. UT2004 was patched to not even do a CD check, and only checks the key in multiplayer mode (when you have to be on the net anyhow) and it sold plenty.
I have no sympathy for companies that think they need bitchy-ass copyprotection and then can't properly implement it. It is YOUR job to make the experience easy for your customers.
Not only that, the more your protection messes with their experience, the more incentive there is to illegally copy the game. An illegal copy will just work. No activation, no registration, just install and go. If the servers are all backlogged to hell, makes an illegal copy look much more tempting.
"While I agree with you that it's a pain.. Why blame Valve? Isn't this just a reaction to rampant piracy in the community?"
Why not blame Valve for taking the wrong approach (by annoying paying customers) to solving what is, in fact, unsolvable?
Preloading was only an option before release. You have to purchase the game now to be able to preload.
I can't imagine the hassles of playing with a cracked Half-Life 2. You'll never be able to patch the game (something that will be necessary to solve some of the audio stuttering issues people are complaining about), you'll never get to play online (unless you use...yep, a crappy hacked server), and you'll be pirating which is bad for gaming (or do copyrights only matter in GPL "source code theft" articles?).
All the people bitching right now...still ran out and bought the game anyway! Come on, we've all known how this would go down for about a year now. Steam is going to stick around whether you like it or not. Just back up your GCF files to DVD, play in Offline Mode, and enjoy the damn game you paid for.
Yup. Until I want to play CounterStrike and the file-auth stuff in Steam starts banning cheaters. Then I'll be happy it's here.
I installed from DVD in about 35 minutes last night. Including a failed Steam auth, after which it said "oops, sorry, can't register now, I'll try back later" and let me play anyway. This really isn't a big deal.
Wrong. It is their fault for going overboard. And it's completely up to them if they want to go this route. Just like any product, it is still up to the consumer masses to make their likes and dislikes of their experience with the product. And if that includes installation hoops...
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
"Sure - it shoves a rod up your ass, but it sure beats dealing with Vivendi."
In this instance I'm sick of people picking sides, as if they had to absolve either Vivendi or Valve of all wrongdoing. I'm sorry, but both companies are buttholes for playing this middle-man game that in the end only winds up screwing the consumer. Buy from Vivendi: Valve gets less cash and you have to unlock the CD. Buy from Valve: they screw the giant Vivendi but you have to download over a gig of data and the servers are inundated. Moreover you don't actually own anything.
Both companies are trying to screw eachother at the expense of the consumer, pure and simple.
Oh, and as for...
By the way, people preloading HL2 didn't have a problem playing it, only those who bought retail (Vivendi's domain) requiring activation.
I think my credit card is going to be double-charged because of Steam's screwed up billing system which errored out on the first try but still appears to have charged my card. It also took over 30 minutes from the time I started unlocking the game to the time I finally got to play it.
It's an amazing piece of software that is certain to win game of the year. But that doesn't mean Valve couldn't have done way better with Steam.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Why buy the game and go through all of this shit when you can download a cracked version and play?
Okay, lets see my choices:
* Buy legally by clicking on "Play Half-Life 2" in Steam and entering credit card, then best case play it in 5 minutes (if you pre-loaded), worst case play that afternoon (after it's downloaded, and saying that the auth servers are saturated)
* Find an IRC channel, then hunt around for a download site, find a torrent somewhere, wait for hours while there are too many peers and only one seed, have it slowly trickle down over a day or even more, unrar 50 different files, install it, find out that the crack that came with it didn't work, find a new crack, install, play, and then have a 50% that the developer can detect warez'ed versions and alter the game accordingly (see the new Vampire: The Masquerade game, which co-incidentally uses the same engine as HL2).
Knee-Jerking about anything that registers online and calling it DRM is just stupid.
Lets see what we've got - an online distribution method where you can download and play the game on as many computers as you want, where you can preload all the data before the game is released so that you don't have to download any data when the game is released, and where the artist gets the money instead of publishers and labels - and yet because you had to wait for half an hour to authenticate on the day after release (note: not when it was released), it's suddenly hellspawn on par with Microsoft DRM in music.